The Shooting Gallery is proud to have C215′s first U.S. solo show Smoke Gets in Your Eyes on exhibit until January 7th, 2024. While the French street artist has had current interviews, including this one in the SF Gate and our own exclusive interview, I recently watched this video from February, 2024 and thought it was too good not to share.

The video was filmed for the site Savior Changer, translated as ‘Know Change’ in French, with the interview conducted by Laureline Amanieux. In it, C215 speaks on the role he believes street art should play in re-appropriating urban space, and why he believes a subtle approach enhances an emotional response in viewers. With a statement that may upset some, C215 cemented my admiration of his thoughtful contributions to the current stencil art scene:

Under the influence of a consumerist 20th century there have been lots of artists who have intervened with an “ad” approach, using the language of advertising. You could say that New York style graffiti corresponds in great measure to this frame of mind, where you impose yourself visually on passers by, hammering away at the same message. It could be the repetition of a painted word, without rhyme or reason. It’s a pop art practice which is post-modern and decadent, where it is more or less about deteriorating, imposing one’s self on people’s vision without contributing to a beautification or an improvement in the quality of life for those who live in that landscape. I hope that I belong to the fraction of street artists who intervene in the streets in order to beautify the streets or to add a human element that we all need.

C215 debuted his latest works at Saturday night’s opening of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes at Shooting Gallery.  Inspired by misleading cigarette advertising of days past, the Parisian stencil artists’ images bring awareness to an issue that is still prevalent in today’s advertising market.

Arrested Motion stopped by for a visit – read their full review here.

C. for Chesterfield (front)

Mixed Media Stencil on Found Suitcase, 18x11x5″

Smoker (center)

Mixed Media Stencil on Vintage Canvas, 49×35.5″

Smoking Jon (left)

Inspiring Jon (right)

Mixed Media Stencil on Found Wood, 20×16″

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In honor of his first solo show, ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,’ at the Shooting Gallery, French stencil artist C215 answered a few questions for us, providing thorough answers that not only give insight into his artistic intentions but into his personal character as well. Between studying “catholic theory of Architecture and Painting in XVIIth century, the history of Romanticism in Germany and the birth of Abstract in painting,” being a devout father to an 8 year old daughter and traveling around the world as a practicing and passionate artist it’s incredible to see that C215 still found time to create such a thoughtful solo show. Come see ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,’ opening tomorrow from 7-11pm.

Read the full press release and RSVP Here
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In SF Gate’s article C215: Kicking Habit Inspires Smoking Exhibition, published this morning, Kimberly Chun speaks with artist C215 on when he first stepped back to look at his own addiction to cigarettes and how it lead to his upcoming show at Shooting Gallery. The show, which looks at tobacco advertisments and iconography, fits perfectly with the artist’s style of stencil art, often seen in streets all around the world because “After all, where does one usually find smokers?” Akin to the laws here in California, smoking inside is prohibited in Paris, the city C215 was born in and currently still lives.

“[C215 has] been doing research on the history of smoking and tobacco-brand iconography – advertising that has promised its users that they will look thinner, smarter or fashionable with a cigarette on hand. Guémy says he has been understanding how advertising uses images of “people in dominant classes” smoking in order to influence “housewives, immigrants, soldiers, people bored in life.[...] ‘I’m step by step beginning to make fake cigarette advertising,” he explains from Switzerland, “and doing it with the homeless, immigrants and artists – the people who are smoking cigarettes in real life but are never shown in advertising. The people who are the real target.’”

C215′s works are made on recycled materials and found objects, along with “more conceptual materials, like a friend’s radiograph, to show smoke coursing through a body.” The show ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes‘ opens this Saturday at Shooting Gallery, 7-11pm. Read the full press release and RSVP Here.