Printed Canvas Art: What’s Popular this Year?
Graffiti has had a mixed press in the last few years. On the plus side, talented artists such as Banksy have made graffiti an aesthetic pleasure, using stencils to create technically challenging artworks with a subtle meaning attached. This kind of graffiti was bound to grow popular with both the public and the art critics : visually pleasing and intellectually satisfying. This type of graffiti is even purchased as graffiti on canvas, and hung on the walls of middle class households and corporate meeting rooms.
All the same, what about the opposite end of the spectrum? – the tagger, the gangbanger kind – this is just seen as vandalism, an offence committed by the untalented. But is graffiti merely an artform? To a lot of individuals, it’s not only an artform, but a way to put your stamp on a district, or perhaps two fingers up at society : anti-establishment, anti-social, even anti-art.
Graffiti has always been a secret pursuit, even though the effects are very much public facing. The intended audience is frequently unbeknown. Is it for a competing gang? A communication to an individual? To the public? Or….maybe it’s merely uncalled-for and out of boredom.
Whatever the reasons may be, there seems to be some kind of permanent demand to spray on walls. Some cities have conceded that graffiti isn’t a short-term craze, so they’ve designated zones where graffiti is permitted – normally unoccupied areas, but now and again busier zones like temporary boarding around inner city buildings under construction.
