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art in illegal terms …

they come in the night, but they’re not thieves, in fact they give back to their city. Before the sun can climb towards its horizon and daylight skidaddles across the cityscape, they leave their mark. the brick and mortar of the urban culture is forever changed. by day, the spray paint strokes lay, etched onto buildings – this is art in illegal terms.

legalize it – the writing on that walls, that is. with urban art becoming the norm these days, the inevitable inquiry  is how before it slips, unnoticed off the radar of avant guarde and into the unforgiving abyss of mainstream? from the subway cars of NYC to the sophisticated Paris streets, this subculture gives those with no political voice, a chance to speak.

Its formal name is graffiti, but its makers simply call it life. It wasn’t until recently that “art” was added to the term, because before that, it was something that bad seeds were arrested for. outsiders say it’s a crime, but for the ones who live and breathe the school of hard knocks and are brave enough to broadcast it, a city as their canvas is at their disposal.

for outsiders, the lines, shapes and shadows splashed across buildings is merely a spectator sport, at most, a playground for the eyes. but for the artists that render these misdemeanor masterpieces, it’s more than just a show. these are allegorical tales, spun by pawns in the game of life where inner city kids are the underdogs.

they are silenced by the boys in blue, jail bars, crack pipes, gang life … yet these walls are their soap box. they are portals into the urban mystique …

activists of the urban art world …

bio: the author of this blog, Andrea McPherson [fire_isis] is an arts and entertainment writer based out of Washington, DC. after stumbling upon some of DC’s most beautiful artwork that happened to be on city buildings and metro station walls, she decided to expound on an unspoken secret that most cities around the world have; graffiti art and the message behind it. after discovering that she one of the greatest graffiti writers of all time, Dondi White share the same birthday and birth place, down to the hospital where they were born, she decided it was nothing short of destiny to uncover the beauty held in the grit and grime of street art.

http://www.examiner.com/urban-arts-in-washington-dc/andrea-mcpherson