SF Weekly‘s cover story this week is all about Jeremy Novy, the koi stenciler:
Even people who don’t know his name know his aquatic vertebrates — colorful creatures that can be found on sidewalks across San Francisco, most prominently at Market and Laguna streets, where scores of the fish swirl outside the Orbit Room. In Novy’s studio, though, the animals are crowded out by representations of people. Men, mostly. Queer men like the drag queen with the yellow beehive and bright red panties, and the young wrestlers grabbing each other’s flesh. Then there’s the stencil of a big pink erect phallus.
“That’s my cock,” Novy says matter-of-factly.
The stylized erection has appeared on walls inside select San Francisco venues like the Stud, a gay South of Market bar at Ninth and Harrison streets, but Novy has a greater mission: to make queer-oriented street art and artists more visible. The mainstream, as it were.
