Bringing the streets to the gallery: Hawk Krall’s ‘New Philadelphia’ at Moore

Hawk Krall has perhaps the most distinct visual style of any artist currently working in Philadelphia. His illustrations — of vibrant, highly detailed street scenes, usually set in Philly but sometimes in other cities — grace posters, magazines, and murals across town. An erstwhile comics artist, he takes the cartoonish energy from that medium and applies it to the helter-skelter of urban life as it plays out in public space.

Given this everyman’s approach to capturing the spirit of the city, Krall works primarily as a commercial artist: He’s done t-shirts, restaurant menus, and even the backyard décor at Pizza Brain. But starting this week, his work will take a rare turn in a gallery setting. The New Philadelphia, opening on January 23 in the galleries at Moore College of Art and Design, will feature new pieces as well as prints of commissioned work from the past.

“The gallery’s big. It’s bigger than any space I’ve ever shown work in,” says Krall, 38, whose last major show was at Space 1026 in 2012.

Merchants to gutter punks to bicyclists

Moore’s vast galleries will allow him to scale his work up, augmenting the Where’s Waldo-meets-Robert Crumb feel of his illustrations. Chock full of motley characters and site-specific nuances, they’re the kinds of scenes a viewer will comb through to see how many familiar references she can spot.

“I research everything and shoot photos from different angles,” Krall, a Jenkintown native, says of his process. “A lot of it is recognizable to people, but I’m not trying to be photorealistic.”

The result: high-energy panoramas that run the gamut of Philadelphia culture, from the merchants to the gutter punks to the commuter bicyclists.

“It’s kind of the way Philadelphia is,” says Krall, who has lived here since 2001 and watched the city grow. “People say, ‘Why do you draw all the bums?’ Well, have you ever walked down the street? That’s what I like about it — the mix of all types of people. And Philadelphia is busy now. It didn’t really used to be.”

Other openings at Moore

Three additional exhibitions will open at Moore College this month. Of these, the most anticipated is a 35-year retrospective of New York artist and critic Walter Robinson. Eighty of his paintings, which examine the intersection of mass culture, media, and personal desire, will make up what Moore is calling the “first major survey” of Robinson’s work.

The gallery will also feature photography by Holly Zausner — who, like Krall, tends to deal with people’s relationships to cityscapes, albeit in more solitary conditions — and an installation by the New Orleans-based Sally Heller.

The exhibitions are on view January 23 until March 12 at the Galleries at Moore, 1916 Race Street, Philadelphia, and are free and open to the public. An opening reception will take place on January 22 at 6pm.

Hawk Krall has contributed to publications where writer Matt Bevilacqua has also worked.

At right: a print of 'Dellasandro's' by Hawk Krall. Image courtesy of the artist.