FAILE

FAILE is the name of a collective of painters, graphic designers and illustrators based in New York. It was founded in 1999 by Patrick McNeil, an American born in 1975, and Patrick Miller, a Canadian born in 1976. Together, they discovered New York's underground culture and developed a passion for it. The collective began their urban art project by photographing existing street art and graffiti on the streets of New York. Gradually, they learned the techniques of street art: silkscreening, stencils, collage, painting, sculpture, mosaic frescoes, and exhibited their work on city walls. FAILE's street art is more feminine and contrasts with the graffiti culture of the time. The collective is particularly inspired by vintage images, pop culture and comics, and is influenced by artists such as Roy Lichtenstein and Basquiat. FAILE travels and exports its street art all over the world, including Tokyo, Paris, London, Barcelona, Madrid, Berlin, Amsterdam and Lisbon, where it creates collages, stencils and gigantic frescoes. Emblematic artists, their work is regularly honored by prestigious institutions such as London's Tate Modern, Strasbourg's Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, and New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.