This is a section of Australian street art from 2003 by the artist Dmote, from an anti-war piece. The artist started working in the streets, then was embraced by the underground art scene. This image comes from a calender purchased in the U.S., and the artist actually lives in California now, puts on exhibits, and even designs for corporations, but still is a part of underground graffiti culture. I like the pure abstract beauty of this piece. It totally changes the way I look at the letter forms of my own language, in a way that few things have, outside of studying Middle English (my ninth grade history class read a big chunk of Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", and it took a while to adjust your eyes to seeing the shapes as English letters). I actually had better luck with Chaucer, as I've haven't been able to figure out what this piece says. It's like a subculture has been slowly developing this alternate language, starting with the puffy or angular graffiti letters in the 80s, and growing into these massive, amorphous, beautiful, secret words today. These letters have a sense of being 3-dimensional, overlapping with each other, sprawling out in all directions, growing arrows. I also think the colors are gorgeous.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Graffiti
This is a section of Australian street art from 2003 by the artist Dmote, from an anti-war piece. The artist started working in the streets, then was embraced by the underground art scene. This image comes from a calender purchased in the U.S., and the artist actually lives in California now, puts on exhibits, and even designs for corporations, but still is a part of underground graffiti culture. I like the pure abstract beauty of this piece. It totally changes the way I look at the letter forms of my own language, in a way that few things have, outside of studying Middle English (my ninth grade history class read a big chunk of Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", and it took a while to adjust your eyes to seeing the shapes as English letters). I actually had better luck with Chaucer, as I've haven't been able to figure out what this piece says. It's like a subculture has been slowly developing this alternate language, starting with the puffy or angular graffiti letters in the 80s, and growing into these massive, amorphous, beautiful, secret words today. These letters have a sense of being 3-dimensional, overlapping with each other, sprawling out in all directions, growing arrows. I also think the colors are gorgeous.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think the colors that this designer use were beautiful. In some ways I feel like it's a dragon wrapping its way around the letters. The more I look at the more it looks like it has a drop shadow almost as if it is sitting on top of the wall. It really is a beautiful piece of art.
ReplyDelete