Bio.
Punkmetender (Romain Lefebvre) is a French-born, Miami-based artist who merges street art, fine art, and digital media into a singular language of transformation. After relocating to Los Angeles in the early 2000s, he spent over a decade developing and creating alongside Thierry Guetta (Mr. Brainwash), helping shape the rise of contemporary street art and appearing in the acclaimed Banksy-directed documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop. His practice is a dialogue between control and chaos — 3D butterflies in metal, silkscreened wings, and layers of paint applied through dripping, splashing, and spinning. He uses custom-built tools, from massive spin tables to custom-built machines, allowing gravity, speed, and motion to become collaborators in the work. These creations live on canvas, in sculpture, and across city walls — including guerrilla installations that reclaim public space with poetic rebellion. For Punkmetender, the paint itself is never the focus — it is simply the vehicle. What matters is the energy, the message, the values embedded in the final piece. In his latest collection, “Voice of Colors,” the butterflies evolve into symbols of dreams and hope from children around the world. Each butterfly carries the imagination and purity of youth — a reflection of a generation that speaks truth and envisions a brighter future. The works are an invitation to listen, to remember, and to nurture the dreams that shape tomorrow. Every piece bears this message on its back — a quiet reminder that art, like a child’s voice, has the power to inspire change through beauty and belief.
Story.
I escaped France at a young age with nothing but a suitcase, a dream, and barely a word of English, chasing a vision of America that felt bigger than my own life. In Los Angeles I met Thierry Guetta, a moment that cracked my world open and led me into seventeen years of building, producing, and developing the phenomenon known as Mr. Brainwash. While the world saw the spectacle, I was quietly shaping a visual language of my own, painting walls at night, bombing the streets, learning to breathe through color and instinct. Graffiti gave me a voice before I ever mastered the language, and those early nights taught me that art could be a form of survival. In 2017 I created my first 3D butterfly mural; an experiment that became a signature and a symbol of my own transformation. From there, I stepped fully into contemporary art, blending movement, texture, neon, spin-painting, and sculptural elements to create pieces that felt alive. I destroyed entire collections to be reborn again, always chasing evolution over comfort, metamorphosis over repetition. Collectors, celebrities, and major art players began finding my work, drawn to the raw emotion and the story stitched beneath every layer of paint. Now based in Miami, I’m building my largest projects yet; immersive installations, monumental suspended works, and new worlds emerging from butterflies, light, and movement.
My journey is simple: I came to America with no voice, and art became the language that finally let me speak.
