In 1971, a seven-year-old Sandra Fabara moved together with her household from a metropolis nestled in an Ecuadorian rainforest to the dense brick panorama of Brooklyn. By the point she was a teen, she had gone from climbing timber to hopping the fences of the MTA practice yards. Quickly, she was often known as the queen of New York Metropolis graffiti: the one and solely Girl Pink.
When you’re as mesmerized by the Seventies and ’80s world of New York Metropolis graffiti as we’re, you then’ve seen her earlier than, immortalized in basic pictures by Martha Cooper and as one of many stars of Charlie Ahearn’s basic characteristic movie Wild Model (1983). In what gave the impression to be an nearly solely male scene, these pictures confirmed Girl Pink holding her personal as one of many few ladies 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 “ got up more than most guys did,” even when these guys had been “not willing to admit” it — she was one of many solely ladies capable of proceed her profession above floor within the gallery world.
Martha Cooper, “Lady Pink on Train” (1982) (© Martha Cooper; picture courtesy Martha Cooper)
Girl Pink, “Pink” (1983)
At the moment, her early reminiscences of enjoying 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 “urban jungle.”
On this episode of the Hyperallergic Podcast, Girl Pink sat down with our Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian in our Brooklyn places of work, just some blocks away from her childhood residence. They talk about all the pieces from what it was wish to be a girl 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 practice yards to galleries, mural partitions, and museums, inspiring numerous younger ladies artists throughout continents.
Girl Pink, “Death of Graffiti 3” (2018)
You may see a few of her work on show now in Above Floor: Artwork from the Martin Wong Graffiti Assortment on the Museum of the Metropolis of New York via August 10, 2025.
Subscribe to Hyperallergic on Apple Podcasts and anyplace else you hearken to podcasts. Watch the whole video of the dialog with pictures of the artworks on YouTube.
