Studio Gangster

Stephen ESPO Powers is a Philadelphia native who has been writing on walls since he was three. After attending the University of the Arts, he moved to New York and launched On the Go Magazine, a graffiti lifestyle periodical that with Ari Forman and several conspirators help, grew from a grubby 3 page xerox to a 96 page magazine with 40,000 copies internationally distributed. No longer unique and still smarting from the experience, he put On The Go to sleep.


The Art of Getting Over (St. Martin’s Press 1999) is the culmination of Stephen Powers 13 years of graffiti experience. More than pretty pictures, the book tells the stories of several writers, creating a compelling depiction of the illicit expression.

With the newest publication of, Steve Powers Is A Studio Gangster, Powers records 5 years of paintings that distill the complete range of human emotion into readily recalled and related memes. These visual archetypes are aptly described by Powers as a synthesis of word and image to create a new emotional revelation . This book is published on the occasion of his Fall 2007 exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art entitled. Powers is a 2008 Fulbright scholar and has shown at Deitch Projects, the 49th Bienalle, the Luggage Store and the Liverpool Biannual in 2004

Steve "Espo" Powers - Studio Gangster .