Mear One


Mear One is an American artist based in Los Angeles, known for his often-political street graffiti art. Mear One is associated with CBS and WCA crews. As a graphic designer, Mear One has designed apparel for Conart, Kaotic, as well as his own Reform brand. Mear One has designed album covers for musicians such as Non Phixion, Freestyle Fellowship, Alien Nation, Limp Bizkit, Busdriver and Daddy Kev.
His 2012 mural, Freedom for Humanity, a temporary street installation in London, was criticized as antisemitic and later led to then Labour backbencher Jeremy Corbyn being criticized for failing to identify this when he was told it was to be effaced and sent an image of it on social media.

Early life and education

Ockerman was born in 1971 in
Santa Cruz, California.

Career

An L.A. street artist and graffiti writer for over 20 years, Mear's partners have included Skate One, Anger, Yem, and Cisco CBS.
In 2004, Mear joined artists Shepard Fairey and Robbie Conal to create a series of "anti-war, anti-Bush" posters for a street art campaign called "Be the Revolution" for the art collective Post Gen.
In April 2014, Mear appeared with fellow graffiti-muralists Cache, EyeOne, and Alice Mizrachi at Brown University as part of the panel Bottom-Up Place Making: Graffiti-murals and Latino/a Urbanism, hosted by the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America and moderated by University of Arizona urban theorist, graffiti writer, and professor, Dr Stefano Bloch.
In 2015, he was a judge on Oxygen Channel's "Street Art Throw Down" hosted by poster artist Justin Bua.
In September 2012, Mear One painted a temporary street mural in Hanbury Street, London, entitled Freedom for Humanity. It depicted suited men seated around a table, under an Eye of Providence, playing a Monopoly-like board game that rested on the backs of bent over naked figures, with a background of industry and protest.
A local councillor likened it to antisemitic propaganda in pre-war Germany, referencing what he saw as its stereotypical depictions of Jews, together with its reference to finance and the monetary and Masonic associations of the Eye of Providence. Mear One said that those portrayed comprised both Jews and non-Jews and denied any antisemitic intent, and that his work raised questions of class.
Amid allegations of antisemitism in the UK Labour Party in 2018, the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was criticised for a social media comment made while he was a backbencher, which asked why the mural was being threatened with removal.