In 1994, Powers moved to New York City to expand On the Go magazine, a hip hop magazine founded by Powers. Working under the name 'Espo', he painted throughout the city becoming known during the late 1990s for his thematic graffiti 'pieces', for On the Go magazine, and for his 1999 book The Art of Getting Over, which placed stories told by other graffiti writers alongside photos of their work.
Studio art
In 2000, Powers gave up graffiti to become a full-time studio artist. He is now a mixed media artist, working in drawing, painting, printmaking, and installation art. Power's work has been shown in the Venice and Liverpool biennials, as well as shows at New York City's Deitch Gallery. In 2005, he curated The Dreamland Artists Club, a project in which professional artists helped Coney Island merchants by repainting their signs. Powers first solo museum exhibition was in the fall of 2007, at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts which showed the work from his Coney Island sign shop. In 2007, Powers was awarded a Fulbright scholarship. He used the grant to create murals in Dublin, Ireland and in Belfast's Shankhill area, with the assistance of local teenagers. His work in Belfast was inspired by the area's political murals. , a waterboarding themed installation at Coney Island. In 2009, Powers produced a series of murals in Philadelphia about the complexities of personal relationships, titled A Love Letter for You. He painted 50 murals along the elevated train in West Philadelphia. The project was sponsored by a $260,000 grant from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage and was produced by the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. The 'Love Letters' series continued in Syracuse on railroad overpasses ; A Love Letter to Brooklyn, which consisted of painting an old Macy's building occupying an entire city block in Downtown Brooklyn; A Love Letter to Baltimore'' ; In November 2015 Powers exhibited "Stephen Powers: Coney Island Is Still Dreamland " at The Brooklyn Museum. In 2019, Powers created a site specific commission for SFMOMA’s third-floor architecture and design gallery. Powers has exhibited internationally, including at Deitch Projects, the 49th Venice Biennale , Apex Art, Brazilian Cultural Pavilion, Art In The Streets curated by Jeffrey Deitch, MOCA, and as part of Beautiful Losers, His work is in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum Of Art.
Solo exhibitions (selected)
2004 – My List Of Demands, Deitch Projects, New York, NY
2020 – During the COVID-19 pandemic, Powers painted a mural on the boarded up windows of a retail store in Soho, New York City.
Graffiti
His graffiti work often blurred the lines between illegal and legal, for example by creating pieces that appeared to be legitimate advertisements or by painting abandoned shop fronts in daylight.
Arrest
In December 1999 Powers was charged with six counts of criminal mischief. Powers contends that the arrest was politically motivated. The arrest in his home took place after he had participated in a protest, conceived by artist Joey Skaggs, against New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's attempt to shut down a controversial art show Sensation at the Brooklyn Museum. During the protest, Powers and others threw fake elephant dung at a caricature of then Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Powers painted the caricature for the protest. Powers pled guilty to one charge because he was "ready to grow on.” A New York Times editorial criticized the Giuliani administration for its secrecy in the case, but also dismissed Powers as a self-promoter. TheVillage Voice sympathized with Powers: "it's truly scary to think that if you invite people to throw artificial dung at a portrait of the mayor... the police will raid your apartment." The article was also critical of Power's graffiti status, describing him as an egotistical, careerist "celebrity offender". Powers ultimately performed five days of community service.
