He's only one man participating in a city-wide initiative, and yet, he's getting all the looks for this one fact: his artworks stand out. He has a Keith Haring look with Brazilian flair, and he's been running around Atlanta, painting on houses, stores, offices, jazz festival posters, and framed canvases.

This is Yoyo Ferro, the Atlanta-based artist from São Paulo, Brazil, who is best known for his contemporary graffiti-style murals around ATL. Back in mid-May of this year, he finished his first, high-caliber commissioned work for Adidas and Champs Sports.

But he hasn't been in the visual art game for all that long. Before coming to America, Ferro was a bassist for a punk rock band. In 2010, he ended his music career for a shot at the American Dream and headed to Atlanta, and it wasn't until 2013 when Ferro began experimenting with visual art. Since then, however, he has painted murals ranging from the Krog Street Tunnel (a bicycle tunnel famous for its street art) to cornerstone buildings within Atlanta.

During an interview with Sprite, Ferro's signature style was described as a unique combination of "papier mache and contour line drawings" which could be seen in his emboldened outlines and visually soft patterns. His art works generally depict animals and humanoid figures. When asked about his choice in form, Ferro attributed the source of his inspiration to his wife, Kristin, who introduced Ferro to the sprightly art of "blind contour drawing where the artist does not look at the paper, nor do they lift their pencil." He incorporated this free-form drawing technique to all of his works to date.

According to his interview wiith CommonCreativ, "Atlanta was the first place [he] really fell in love with and was proud to be a part of." And he shows his Atlanta pride openly. He still frequently follows trending local hashtags, supports local sports teams, and is genuinely invested in beautifying the neglected parts of the city, namely College Park.

Benefiting from the recent resurgence of community art initiatives in Atlanta, Ferro soon made his first mark in Atlanta by painting on overlooked abandoned buildings in Downtown Atlanta.

The "Atlanta Eye Care" building sits on the corner of MLK Jr. Drive and Broad Street, both of which are busy streets close to the populous Five Points area while the above building is in a more depreciated, Southern edge of the Downtown area. Though the socioeconomic differences between the two locales are stark, Ferro's murals are intended to create a geographic sisterhood between the two neighborhoods, and these efforts are vital to Atlanta's revival as the city continues to serve as the next big hub for the entertainment industry.The concern, however, lies on whether this recuperation will truly occur or if it's simply another fancy rug purchased to hide Atlanta's urban decay. And if this is indeed the first steps to an Atlantan Renaissance, then how does Ferro's artwork play into the process? Which aspects of their locale do these murals represent, if any?

This is where the criticism of Ferro's work arises. The thought that beyond the bold black lines and vibrant colors, there is nothing "deep" about them nor is there anything uniquely Atlanta or Southern. And as long as there remains a disconnect between what's on the canvas and everything else, a work of art can be unwelcome and feel alienating (See: Confederate statues).

As a fan of contour drawing, stripes, and polka dots, I dig Ferro's work, but after weighing them based on true merits, they fell on the category of "stylistically spent." There's a bit of reliance on 7th-grade MS Paint-type shapes and bright colors to compensate for their lack of provocation.

In the current trend of Instagram artists, it's become as easy for an artist to be forgotten as to be found, so as to prevent that type of hype, I do hope Yoyo Ferro takes advantage of the growing exposure of his artworks and use that as encouragement to continue creating and that he finds a custom signature style less duplicable, perhaps hybridizing an essential quirk from São Paulo with one from Atlanta.

To see more of his artworks, please visit his web page.