‘I’m a badass’: how Lady Pink took on the macho men of New York’s graffiti scene

Risking arrest, and even decapitation, she ‘bombed’ yards, tunnels and trains in the dead of night. As she brings the spirit of the subway to the UK, the grande dame of graf remembers scaring Keith Haring – and killing a snakeLady Pink was five when she killed her first snake – with her bare feet. “That shows what a precocious and fearless kid I was,” says the 61-year-old. Even over the phone from upstate New York, the venerated graffiti artist is a force to be reckoned with, talking at a breakneck tempo punctuated by bursts of raucous laughter. There’s a sense that this energy might quickly combust too – she admits she “totally lost it” while preparing for her current solo show, Miss Subway NYC, at D’Stassi Art in London.The exhibition sees her vividly recreate a New York City subway station. There are paintings in eye-popping colours depicting trains, train yards and playful portraits of the characters you typically see there: a busker in a cat costume, an elderly lady with a shopping cart and a chihuahua. With the help of her husband, fellow graffiti artist Smith, she has even meticulously reproduced layers of tags on the walls from her halcyon days, when she would risk arrest – and sometimes her life – to spray across the city at night. On the show’s opening night, more than 1,000 people showed up to pay their respects to the grande dame of graf. Continue reading...

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