Biography
Roa is an anonymous street artist from Ghent, Belgium, born around the mid-1970s. Fascinated by animal drawing from an early age — he collected small bird and rodent skulls to sketch at home — he discovered graffiti through hip-hop culture in the 1980s. In 2008, he began painting giant rats in an abandoned Ghent warehouse, laying the foundation for a body of work devoted entirely to the animal kingdom.
His style is defined by monumental black-and-white murals executed with brushes and aerosol, drawing on the visual language of anatomical plates from old medical textbooks. The animals, often species native to the area where he paints, are rendered with extreme precision, sometimes revealing skeletons and internal organs to evoke the cycle of life and death. He typically covers the surface with white paint before adding detail with markers.
His work can be found on walls in London, New York, Berlin, Madrid, Moscow, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Paris and many other cities across Europe, the Americas, Asia, Australia and Africa. He has exhibited in galleries including Keteleer in Antwerp, Pure Evil in London, Backwoods in Melbourne and Puppy in Los Angeles. The artist maintains strict anonymity, keeping the focus on his creatures rather than on himself.
His style is defined by monumental black-and-white murals executed with brushes and aerosol, drawing on the visual language of anatomical plates from old medical textbooks. The animals, often species native to the area where he paints, are rendered with extreme precision, sometimes revealing skeletons and internal organs to evoke the cycle of life and death. He typically covers the surface with white paint before adding detail with markers.
His work can be found on walls in London, New York, Berlin, Madrid, Moscow, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Paris and many other cities across Europe, the Americas, Asia, Australia and Africa. He has exhibited in galleries including Keteleer in Antwerp, Pure Evil in London, Backwoods in Melbourne and Puppy in Los Angeles. The artist maintains strict anonymity, keeping the focus on his creatures rather than on himself.
The site contains a total of 3 artworks by Roa in 2 countries.
This profile has been viewed 103 times.
Artworks by Roa have been viewed 51 times.
