feature: adah glenn – “street art, british punk, japanese cute and black culture – all in one artist”

Check out Los Angeles based street artist Adah Glenn, the artist behind the alter ego “AfroPuff”; and as LA Weekly reports: “purveyor of all things brown, girl and kawaii”. The magazine has profiled the Japanese inspired artist who recently showed her work at the California African American Museum (CAAM) group show, ‘Flash Tag‘ – a showcase of African-American L.A. street artists. Check out some of Glenn’s work below; plus, some extracts from the LA Weekly article.

By Alexander Aplerku, AFROPUNK Contributor

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.Glenn has often found herself the only woman in the room. “I would like to just deal with the art and not the women issues. I wouldn’t have to if these dudes would behave better,” Glenn says only half-jokingly. The world of street art is often portrayed as a homogenous male and working-class scene. There’s this idea that the women involved are girlfriends or groupies. Glenn, a former child actress whose first commercial role came at six months of age, challenges that.

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Her journey to street artist and graphic designer began after she got fired from a fast food commercial as a child. “I just couldn’t eat the hamburger,” she says, laughing. “The special sauce was disgusting. They replaced me rather quickly with another little girl. They even put her hair in two Afro puffs just like mine.” AfroPuff is the name of Glenn’s Mid-City store and one of the characters in her corporation Adahma, which is structured around three African-American alter egos: The first is DahJemimah, the second is “her politically correct milk-chocolate sister” AfroPuff and the third is Adahma, “the sophisticated black buppie type,” says Glenn. To critics who think a street artist with a corporation is incongruent, Glenn explains, “That’s my upbringing. Corporations protect you from certain things. It’s not right, but it is the way that it is. You have to keep up with trademarks. It’s rough out there.”

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Her aesthetic was greatly influenced by the British punk scene, which she experienced while living at the English boarding school. “I didn’t get punk on revival, I got to experience punk firsthand in the suburbs of London,” she says. “The mohawks, the bands, the street style and the energy — I had never seen such an exciting movement. For a little Catholic school girl from L.A., this was a big deal.”

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http://afropuff.biz/