I Could Waste a Day Finding Graffiti

London, UK - Repine Graffiti Magazine - Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 : goo

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I could waste a day finding graffiti

When we are not ourselves creating, we find ourselves searching. Searching for graffiti, both actively and automatically. With every pre-planned trip to abandoned buildings, with every unexpected flicker of colour past the window of a train, we seek.

For looking upon the work of another who might believe the same ethos, might have the same driving force to keep free speech alive on our island, never fails to reassure.

The street is the place in which I feel most at ease. As with the right knowledge of the urban landscape it becomes not the imposing and regimented environment that so many would have you believe, but a completely different animal. The boundaries of property can be disregarded as you move out of the flow of normality and journey across a city to find regions of abnormality. Creations that are not permitted to exist but yet still do.

The best graffiti often owes a great deal to its surrounding - a perfect juxtaposition of clean lines and a filthy cityscape upon which our work stands, imposingly, defiantly. There is, in my view, a reflection of society displayed by these places. The artwork is like a strong pillar of new ideas left standing after the rest of the aged school of thought has crumbled and decayed.

Whether its finding graffiti in order to document it, or just to feed off other styles and glean inspiration, searching for new works is an important part of our culture. Learning from the mistakes and successes of others, taking photos when the quality and skill displayed seems to warrant them. The title of this piece implies that finding graffiti is a waste of time, but I don’t see it that way. Only those who without thinking more carefully brand graffiti as pointless and senseless would propose such a narrow-minded view. Only those who fear change and fear the insight, foresight and knowledge that the youth possess could condemn graffiti and so we venture forth to defy.

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