Richard Best

Baltimore's Richard Best or other wise known by the pseudonym Xxist is a retired war vet, has a MBA in business, defense contractor, and an MA in art. Did I also mention he plays punk rock? Combining all this together he has created the non-profit group Section 1. He started out by transforming the underside of the Jones Fall Expressway (I-83) into a skateboard park with the idea of a destination center for people to play music, create art, and skate. Some artists and himself tagged and created murals all over the underside to create a utopia of murals. Themes are from protest, love, joyous, silly, hard-crunching, and just plain cool.

Richard Best also creates murals and tags across the city, some off the cuff, and some sponsored by the city. Xxist's themes for his murals range in topic, but they will show beauty in the people, inner struggles represented by animals, or Max Henderson wave length patterns.

Here I envision a woman of the neighborhood who has something planned, something that the city look for.

On this wall I envision the balance of life. A perpetual Ying and Yang through the image of fish and a beautiful scene in the background

I can see some Banksy influence in this mural. The black and red with using the white of the building as a third color. However, The distortion in this tells me something. I feel she is in pain and is pleading for help.

Unlike the little girl, This is alive with the use of bold warm colors and distortion to create a young black man version of Shiva. He speaks power and self reliance.