Ellery Neon has worked under the pseudonym Hugo Gyrl since 2015– a sideways version of his original moniker “You Go Girl”, first scrawled in 2007.

His tag came as a retort to the otherwise machismo Graffiti world, adding a bit of queer coded joy to the visual landscape of the streets.

Along this same line, Neon’s tags evolved to often include cartoonish figures of witches, who have historically been medicine women, herbalists and queer people that were othered and ostracized and eventually hunted by their societies.

Another motif is a large muscled feminine Cyclops. The Cyclops representsAmericans as products of consumption, our eyes glued to our phones or other screens as our focus is bought and sold, and our other senses now superfluous as we absorb unending advertising and content.

Simultaneously, the Cyclops plays with ideas of gender, the interplay of physical strength and feminine qualities. The sex of the cyclops is never clear, and that ambiguity unsettles or comforts the viewer, depending on their own perception and preferences.