“SHE SLAPS!” featured artist: Metraeda (Germany)

Please provide a brief description of your work.

I came in contact with street art through friends. My motivation are the community approach, the idea of being creative, working together and inspiring each other on the one hand as well as making the whole world a little more colorful on the other hand.

Furthermore, street art is a good way to distribute messages, such as “say no to racism!”.

The name Metraeda is a mixture of Tetraeder (a triangular pyramid) and geometry because I only use geometrical forms, mostly triangles, to build my artworks. Each artwork is placed carefully to fit with the environment.

Does being a female artist, or identifying as a female artist, influence your work, and if so, how?

No, not really. I do a lot of political stuff like streetart against racism, against gentrification or statements like “plant more trees” and so on but I haven’t done an explicit feminist artwork yet. Anyway, that doesn’t mean that I won’t do that in future 😀

What’s the best thing about being a female artist in the sticker world?

I am an artist like all the others, there is no difference. Anyway, there aren’t a lot a female street artists and women are often underestimated. For example, most of the guys who contact me for trade or exchange think I am male, too, maybe because my artworks are not really cute and I don’t use pink a lot 😀 That’s pretty funny when I get messages like “Hey Bro!” I don’t care about that.

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

Respect other artists, don’t stick your stuff over other stickers (except the racism ones) and just do it. Do what you like, explore yourself, there is no curator on the streets. Greetings to my friends all over the world, thanks for inspiring and supporting me!

Special thanks to Oliver Baudach, Hatch Kingdom, Berlin, Germany, for his work to organize the SHE SLAPS! Street Art Stickers by Women Artists from Around the World traveling exhibition.