Cryptik: Eastern Philosophy

In the Eastern Philosophy Series, street artist CRYPTIK combines his writing with icons of Buddha, the Buddha Palm, Ganesha, Mahakala, the Dalai Lama, and Gandhi. He brilliantly layers his script with stencils and wheat-pasted posters to create one-of-a-kind pieces, while stickers and screen-printed shirts provide other mediums for making his art accessible to as many people as possible.

CRYPTIK achieves this by working on a large scale and by taking the risks that graffiti and street artists do to put their pieces up in the most visible locations. One of his largest pieces in 2011, for example, was an 18-feet Buddha Palm that could be seen from the 10 Freeway.

CRYPTIK views himself as a representative of a larger community or Movement. By placing his Eastern Philosophy Series icons in the public sphere, he presents his viewers with an alternative to the overbearing capitalist signage that tells us to consume, reinforcing his view that We ve been deceived into believing that our value comes from the things we own rather than the values we hold.