Essay Example on Street Art: Social Messages Through Paint, Yarn and Stickers

Introduction

Street art is made on public surfaces such as walls of buildings, sidewalks, and highway overpasses. The art appears to occur in urban regions, and it is linked to a particular way of graffiti. It is painted as a means of passing a message associated with social commentaries or political ideas. Not all arts made on streets are painted, others are made with stickers or through approaches such as yarn bombing. Yarn bombing involves covering things like telephone poles and city trees with colorful knitting and fibers. Moreover, art can be constructed by applying stencils where an artist repeats the picture all over a certain wall to convey a statement.

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Art Form

Graffiti is a form of street art but differs from other common arts expressed in the streets. However, both graffiti and street arts are ways of public expression painted on building walls without the permission of property owners leading to vandalism issues (White 7). Street art portrays a bigger goal than graffiti. Therefore, one major difference between street art and graffiti is intent. Culturally, artists of graffiti do not aim at people to understand their work. Instead, they try to convey the message to another group of artists, politicians, or a certain social group making similar territory. By comparison, artists of street arts apply the tools and ideas related to graffiti and utilize them to design art, which sends a message (Hefka 11). Such artists want the public to view their work since their objectives are to provoke reaction and discussion.

Major Artist

Banksy is the world most celebrated and popular artist of graffiti. To some people, his artworks are perceived to be humorous, thought-provoking, ironic, and poignant. However, others view his works as plain vandalism. Whatever the case, the artist seems very clever and talented and passes his ideas in a way that the majority would not do. He has a long list of graffiti art revealing the different artwork locations through google street maps. One of his most emulated pieces of art is the Rage, Flower Thrower, which Banksy drew in 2005 on a wall in Ash Shalon Street, Bethlehem (White 4). It is one the most understood piece, a symbol of hope and peace in the set of destruction and adversity. It shows a masked rioter throwing a flower and not a 'Molotov cocktail.' The art was heavily featured in 2005 Banksy's book - Wall and Piece.

Cultural Context

Graffiti is subtle for the youth yet energetic, loud, and clear response towards a particular community that portrayed no love. Modern graffiti is known to emaciate from hip-hop fashion in New York City. During the period, the city was nearly unrecognized compared to its current booming economic structure. After World War II, many upper- and middle-class people ran out of cities into suburbs due to declined industrialization (Green 12). Only the lower class or the poor were left in different cities. The majority of them worked into laborious work and had little opportunities to run away.

The situation established a sense of helplessness because people who would liberate the poor left urban areas and settled pleasantly in the suburbs. It was through the oppression of the poor the new hip-hop identity began. The art was expressed musically and lyrically in rap music, artistically via graffiti, and physical via break-dancing (Green 13). The expression happened in Boston as well as in Philadelphia. Hip-hop graffiti began with tags in mid-1960, growing all the way to images painted in street walls (Merrill 377).

Hip-hop expressions build the culture of graffiti where an individual pours his/her soul onto a surface through painting and looks at the image to see fears, weaknesses, hopes, and dreams to get a clear understanding of oneself mental state. Basic elements which may have been ignored earlier, are the foundation of graffiti's culture. The study has revealed that an individual's identity is a direct impact of environment and heredity (Gleaton 16). From birth, one does not select the route to follow but is directed via socialization, which has been dictated by chances around them.

People who started the hip-hop group were at the lowest point of the socio-economic pyramid. They were born in poverty and were instead demonstrating their envy to the wealthy class. Therefore, graffiti come as an indirect outcome and modern reaction to the struggle in the US, which has continued in generations (Khader 79). In an economic system, everyone naturally desires to get to the top and keep the position. Many individuals brought up into an open-market are impacted with capitalistic morals. Therefore, to them, it is considered constructive and optimistic about acquiring wealth and sustaining huge amounts of capital, which will last beyond an individual's lifetime.

Unfortunately, lower-class young individuals in urban areas are entirely disenfranchised from any chance of getting to the top and acquire wealth. Instead, they are bound into a social condition where they work all day to make ends meet. More struggles to even get basic requirements to motivate them to engage in entertainment during their free time (Gleaton 21). Luckily, the perspective to stay alive, which every individual owns, cannot be ruined easily. However, older members of society who have been bound to these thoughts for a long time may expand apathetically and discover such kinds of expression meaningless.

Young people still have time to be fully transformed by their surroundings and still be influenced by hereditary survival instinct. The group still desires to create or achieve goals which the society will remember them. Getting the idea and adapting to the youth's urban surroundings and available resources outline the reasoning behind street art. Young people would prefer to paint something on street surfaces for the general public to view. Permanent markers and spray paint were selected to create wall images because they were harder to censor.

Ribao studied graffiti comprehensively and claims that there exist four main hip-hop graffiti values: rebellion, power, fame, and artistic expression. Even if the artistic expression can be used for any kind of art, the other three morals are fairly special to hip-hop (15). They also represent the jealousness expressed by youths towards the upper class. Youths born in rich families have fame and power because such values come along with ascribed status. Rebellion is a character-rich youth ignore as an alternative to their present livelihood.

They fail to understand that many young individuals locked into a particular economic condition take rebellious alternatives to the point of risking their lives to express their rights. The graffiti culture thus lies in such youth motives even though it keeps changing. What permitted the art's dynamism to happen was creating modern and improved technology. Therefore, allowing different kinds of individuals across the world to experience and practice the hip-hop culture.

Art Piece: The Rage, Flower Thrower

The Rage, Flower Thrower image has a man wearing a baseball cap and a scarf who looks like aiming the bouquet to someone or a group of people. The flower rapping and the man are in white and black. The stem of flower protruding from the wrapper is in color. The art shows campus riots happening in the streets in the 1960s. The frustration and anger can be viewed in the rioter's posture as he attempts to bomb the establishments with a bouquet of flowers. In 2005 a gay assembly was staged in Jerusalem city. However, protestors ambushed participants by stabbing three and leaving many injured.

As many commentators discussed, the white and black man in the art represented as a rioter or protestor. The gears he puts on are typically linked to violence. The cap is worn backward, and a bandana hides his identity. The flowers multi-color and vivid could be translated as the flag of the metaphorical gay pride. The flowers themselves symbolize hope for conflicts peaceful resolution. Banksy painted the image on a wall, which is 760 km separating Palestine and Israel (Salib 2295). He commented on the image by saying that Palestine will essentially turn to be the world's biggest open prison. However, while he was painting the work, a person told him that the street does not require to be beautified.

The posture and facial expression of the man in the image claims a violent intent. However, substituting a Molotov cocktail or rock or a bomb with flowers, the artist is advocating for peace and hope and not violence. The region itself is relevant to the message conveyed through the image. The majority related the artwork with violent events, but the artist could also be inspired by the Middle East violent unrest. However, the artist is a prominent anti-war and pacific hence several harsh events could have driven the mural.

In addition to the bouquet of flowers symbolizing hope, peace, love, and life, it would be related to the commemoration of lost loved ones in the ancient era of religious conflict. The work is a perfect example of Banksy's utilization of art to pass social significance messages. The image has even gained popularity and considered important after Banksy artwork. Since its make, the image has been reproduced on t-shirts, posters, phone covers, and other kinds of merchandise. It also one of Banksy's iconic bool cover - Wall and Piece made in 2005.

Importance

The piece is powerful that it passes essential messages to people via the application of graffiti. Image simplicity also enhances the effectiveness of art as it conveys the point straightforward. Banksy's strong utilization of white and black portrays his visual skills that draw the viewer's attention right away. Several articles have quoted the artist stating the way he began applying stencils art. According to Banksy, stencil work was a quick method to conduct his art during his early career days. During those days, the authorities almost arrested him, claiming vandalism on his work and, just like other Banksy's work, the Rage, Flower Thrower, attains inspiration from social and political circumstances. Therefore, his desire is for the public to be enlightened about what is occurring, as some events may pass over without the general public's awareness. The artist applies these events to not only advertise his skills but also alert the public on things taking place across the world.

The message passed by Banksy's art, together with other events related to the work, the artist created an important portrait. Through his graffiti, he has effectively joined all kinds of an individual with varying opinions because of various methods to translate this artwork. He achieved to convey peace and hope message to communities facing violence in a more controversial method. Some people do not agree with image location in Jerusalem and pacifism where guns and high military are represented. Nevertheless, the art forces the audience to consider the reason they would potentially wish to hurl harmful things towards a particular community. Every person who views the image evaluates the negative effects of violent and destructive actions. Moreover, the work reframes the method of handling evil, postulating that the solution can always originate from good.

Works cited

Gleaton, Kristina M. "Power to the People: Street Art as Agency for Change." Doctoral Thesis, 2012, hdl.handle.net/11299/133428.

Green, Madeleynn. "A beautiful mess: The evolution of political graffiti in the contemporary city." Cornell International Affairs Review, vol. 8, no. 1, 2014, pp. 7-17.

Hefka, Angela I. "Art for The People, by The People: The Role of Artistic Expression in American democracy." Doctoral Dissertation, Jan. 2020, rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/62534/PDF/1/.

Khader, Jamil. "Architectural Parallax, Neoliberal Politics and the Universality of the...