Steve Powers (artist)

Stephen J. Powers (born May 25, 1968) is a New York City artist who at one time wrote graffiti in Philadelphia and New York under the name ESPO ("Exterior Surface Painting Outreach"). ESPO is also an auditory acronym for Steve POwers.

Powers is from Philadelphia's Overbrook neighborhood; he graduated from Robert E. Lamberton High School in 1987 and took classes at The Art Institute of Philadelphia and the University of the Arts. In 1994, he moved to New York with fellow writer and designer Ari Forman, in order to expand the reach of On the Go magazine.

He was most well known during the late 1990s for his conceptual pieces as well as his role as the editor and publisher of On the Go Magazine. ESPO's work often blurred the lines between illegal and legal. For example, pieces like "Greetings from ESPOLand" utilized the style of the Asbury Park Billboards and appeared to be a legitimate billboard. On January 4, 1997 ESPO began his most ambitious non-commissioned art. He painted on storefront grates in Fort Greene, Bedford-Stuyvesant, TriBeCa and the South Bronx, covering the entire grate with white or silver paint and then using black to make each grate into a letter in his name. Powers painted in daylight, wearing street clothes; he told the New York Times in 1999 that when passersby asked what he was doing he would tell them, "I'm with Exterior Surface Painting Outreach, and I'm cleaning up this gate"; the official-sounding name, and clever acronym was enough to ward most people off. Powers targeted shops that appeared to be out of business and grates that were already heavily vandalized. He described his graffiti as a public service, and by 1999 said that he had painted around 70 grates. He [...] has the kind of old school tenure in a reviled and illegal art form, and a brilliant legacy of innovation within a medium that makes him both an impeccable spokesman for, and paradigm of, graffiti art

In December 1999 Powers was arrested at his home for graffiti vandalism after he had participated in a protest conceived by multimedia artist Joey Skaggs. The protest was against Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's attempt to shut down the controversial art show "Sensation" at the Brooklyn Museum. Powers contends that the arrest was politically motivated. A New York Times editorial criticized the Giuliani administration for its secrecy in the case, but dismissed Powers as "a noodge and self-promoter, one of those deliberately annoying characters whom most of us could do without." The Village Voice sympathized with ESPO’s plight saying “it's truly scary to think that if you invite people to throw artificial dung at a portrait of the mayor—especially one that resembles the infamous Madonna, packing them in at the Brooklyn Museum—the police will raid your apartment. And if they spot a set of brass knuckles hanging on the kitchen wall, they will bust you for possessing a weapon.” However, the author was also critical of Power’s graffiti status, describing him as an egotistical, careerist "celebrity offender"; the author writes, "in the graffiti world...many consider Powers a media-fed simulation of the Real Thing." Powers was charged with six counts of criminal mischief and he eventually accepted a plea bargain and performed five days of community service.

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