Steve Powers

Stephen J. Powers (born May 25, 1968) is an American contemporary artist and muralist. He is also known by the name ESPO ("Exterior Surface Painting Outreach"), and Steve Powers. He lives in New York City.

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. 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. 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. The 'Love Letters' series continued in Syracuse on railroad overpasses (2010); A Love Letter to Brooklyn (2011), which consisted of painting an old Macy's building occupying an entire city block in Downtown Brooklyn; A Love Letter to Baltimore (2014);

In November 2015 Powers exhibited "Stephen Powers: Coney Island Is Still Dreamland (To a Seagull)" at The Brooklyn Museum. Brazilian Cultural Pavilion (São Paulo, Brazil), and as part of Beautiful Losers, (Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, OH; Yerba Buena Art Center, San Francisco, CA; Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA; Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy; Le Tri Postal, Lille, France)

His work is in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum Of Art.

Solo exhibitions 2003 – City Arts Centre, Dublin 2004 – My List Of Demands, Deitch Projects, New York, NY 2007 – The Magic Word, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia, PA 2011 – Days, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark 2016 – Stephen Powers: Coney Island Is Still Dreamland (To a Seagull), Brooklyn Museum

Public art 2004 – Dreamland Artist Club – Creative Time, New York, NY. ESPO co-curated and participated in a project at Coney Island. 2008 – Waterboard Thrill Ride – part of Creative Time's Democracy In America Exhibition, Coney Island, NY 2009 – A Love Letter For You – A The Mural Arts Program collection of murals in Philadelphia. 2010 – Love Letter For Syracuse – Paintings on train bridges in Syracuse, NY. Sponsored by Syracuse University 2010 – VOLTO JA (I'll Be Back) – Sponsored by SESC 2011 – Love Letter To Brooklyn – Mural project in Brooklyn 2014 – Love Letter to Baltimore – Mural project in conjunction with Baltimore Public Arts 2016 – Olde City – Philadelphia, PA 2017 – O'Miami Poetry Festival – Miami Beach, FL 2018 – Coney Island Art Walls – Coney Island NY 2018 – 18th and Sansom – Philadelphia, PA 2019 – Pier 40 – R.E.D. – 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.

Arrest In December 1999, Powers was charged with six counts of criminal mischief. Powers contends that the arrest was politically motivated. The arrest took place in his home, 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 Giuliani, which Powers had painted for the protest. Powers pled guilty to one charge, saying he was "ready to grow on." 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." However, the article was also critical of Powers' graffiti status, describing him as an egotistical, careerist "celebrity offender". Powers ultimately performed five days of community service.

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