In 1971, a seven-year-old Sandra Fabara moved along with her household from a metropolis nestled in an Ecuadorian rainforest to the dense brick panorama of Brooklyn. By the point she was a young person, she had gone from climbing timber to hopping the fences of the MTA prepare yards. Quickly, she was referred to as the queen of New York Metropolis graffiti: the one and solely Woman Pink.
In the event you’re as mesmerized by the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s world of New York Metropolis graffiti as we’re, then you definitely’ve seen her earlier than, immortalized in traditional images by Martha Cooper and as one of many stars of Charlie Ahearn’s traditional characteristic movie Wild Type (1983). In what seemed to be an virtually solely male scene, these photos confirmed Woman Pink holding her personal as one of many few girls acknowledged for his or her contributions to the golden age of graffiti writing. Whereas she is adamant that she was not the primary feminine graffiti artist — she credit others like Barbara 62, Eva 62, and Charmin 65, who she says “ bought up greater than most guys did,” even when these guys have been “not prepared to confess” it — she was one of many solely girls in a position to proceed her profession above floor within the gallery world.
Immediately, her early reminiscences of taking part in within the rainforests, which embrace killing a snake on the tender age of 5, meld with the curves of her graffiti lettering and her inspirations from Antoni Gaudí, Hayao Miyazaki, and Frank Frazetta, to create uniquely fantastical worlds that completely depict the thought of an “city jungle.”
On this episode of the Hyperallergic Podcast, Woman Pink sat down with our Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian in our Brooklyn workplaces, just some blocks away from her childhood dwelling. They talk about every little thing from what it was prefer to be a lady within the graffiti world and her collaborations with artists like Jenny Holzer and Jean-Michel Basquiat to her relationship with graffiti legend Lee Quiñones, tracing her journey from prepare yards to galleries, mural partitions, and museums, inspiring numerous younger girls artists throughout continents.
You’ll be able to see a few of her work on show now in Above Ground: Art from the Martin Wong Graffiti Collection on the Museum of the Metropolis of New York via August 10, 2025.
Subscribe to Hyperallergic on Apple Podcasts and anywhere else you take heed to podcasts. Watch the entire video of the dialog with photos of the artworks on YouTube.
