Living Proof - All Roses

All Roses, a book by Cheryl Dunn for Living Proof. 

The rise of downtown New York City’s most influential artists, graffiti writers and crews was intimately captured through the lens of Cheryl Dunn. In the early 2000s, the world below 14th street bred an ecosystem of vandalism, underground culture and art; parallel to a darker side of drug addiction and rampant partying. ‘All Roses’ depicts the lives and work of artists such as the late great Dash Snow, Kunle Martins, Craig Costello, Steve Powers and REVS as they were shaping much of what graffiti and contemporary art would become.

Cheryl Dunn’s personal connection to the Mission School of San Francisco led to a natural documentation of artists including Barry McGee and Margaret Kilgallen (RIP). These people defined San Francisco’s unique blend of graffiti, folk art, and DIY culture; mixing letter-based bombing with gallery aesthetics, paving the way for graffiti to be accepted in the fine art world.

Shoulder to shoulder, San Francisco was a playground for graffiti campaigns. Writers like AMAZE and KR made a lasting impact during this era. The use of Craig Costello’s KRINK in San Francisco was a game-changer as the trademark ink-approach to taking tags became the standard.

‘All Roses’ captures the fleeting moments of New York and San Francisco’s underground art scenes before they were widely known or faded into history. Cheryl Dunn preserved a time when graffiti, skateboarding, and art were all intertwined in a way that can’t be replicated today. Her work is a cultural time capsule of the people who made history without ever trying to.