Graffiti decorates the cityscape.  The shapes and colors, the attitude and energy, the deteriorated, underbelly settings thrill my artistic sense.  The spaces where these art works reside often are interesting and aesthetic in themselves.  I’ve created a category called “in place“ to give capture the breadth and breath of these places.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I focus more closely on what I call “purposeful art.”  My intent is not necessarily to document someone else’s work, but I have found decorations on walls by street artists that are interesting, provocative, and well done.  These pieces like almost all graffiti have a short existence before they are obliterated by someone/something else.  I’ve tried to capture them in a lasting way in a photo, to pick out that portion that can stand on its own as an interesting, emotional composition.

Then there is what I call “peelings“:  Selected images of remnants of wall posters that have been torn and replaced time and again often augmented by splashes of graffiti paint.  Included here also are “scrubbings,” the result of someone attempting to cover over or scrub out whatever it was that offended them, or the result of someone simply lacking fresh wall space and adding their art and messaging on top of existing work.   By accident all of these become colorful, moody art objects, at the same time simple and complex, seemingly drawn from an abstract expressionist tradition.   I literally search them out and put a frame around them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Similarly, there is the “inadvertent aesthetic“:  the haphazard collection and juxtaposition of graffiti doodlings that become a pleasing array of color, line, and shapes.  What’s needed is to find and isolate among the clutter the right frame and focus.