Graffiti artists show Work in Progress

outside Somerset House in Quarry Bay, Victor Ash stands on a hydraulic lift platform, spraying paint on the wall of the second-floor balcony. The Hanging Falling Graffiti Artists, which looks as if four men are clinging on the edge of the balcony, is one of three works that the Denmark-based artist has created as part of the Work in Progress exhibition, to be held from June 17 to July 7.

One of Ash's other works draws from the cover of The Clash's album London Calling and depicts a man smashing a ghetto blaster. Another features a family of monkeys sitting on military weapons such as tanks and missiles.

The exhibition, which aims to promote street art, will also feature large-scale murals, installations and mixed media works created on-site in a defunct office space in the same building by eight other international artists. They include Beastman, and Meggs and RONE from Australia, as well as local artists 4Get, Mark Goss, Pantone C, Parent's Parents and XEME. In addition, Martin Mazorra and Mike Houston of Cannonball Press in the US were flown in to create a "tornado" out of office debris.

Many of the works are created inside the defunct office instead of on the street. But Ash says the spirit of street art is maintained, as the works are all site specific and "melt with the architecture".

"They have this raw feeling to them. It's a relationship you just can't get on canvas," says Ash.

Portuguese artist Vhils, for instance, has been drilling and hammering directly on the wall to reveal different layers of paint, cement, and bricks for two textured murals. One features two men, of whom Vhils took snapshots in Hong Kong and Shanghai, set against the artist's abstract take on the harbour view. Another, which he created in collaboration with US art collective Cyrcle, depicts a Caucasian and a Native American alongside the words "Rise" and "Fall".

The Wild West is the theme that Cyrcle members David Leavitt and David Torres chose for the exhibition. "Not only we are growing as artists, but also America is very much a work in progress to us," says Torres. "So we're using cowboys and Indians as an example of the methodology of old America and new America. We're like the cowboys and Indians now, working in the Wild West from Los Angeles.