Why Graffiti Lights Me Up

Graffiti, the ultimate medium for taking familiar imagery or ideas and combining them in unexpected, playful ways, in a living, breathing, ever changing context. Beautifully unregulated and ephemeral, graffiti is an irreverent mixing pot of aesthetics and concepts, often satirical, offering a constantly evolving commentary on the social, political and economic cultures that surround us.

I’ve been mesmerised by it for years, and often find my eye on the hunt for these unexpected treasures as I walk around a city. No quirk of street furniture or structure is beyond interest, from sticker-plastered municipal bins to dilapidated walls, covered with graffiti, it all excites and engages my imagination.

I’ve recently returned from a few days in Lisbon, on a rare hop out of the UK. There were two particular encounters that gave me pause for thought. The first, a visit to the Tejo Power Station, where a contemporary art display left me feeling completely unengaged and unstimulated. The sterility and obscure, machine mediated concepts, of the display, surrounded by vast quantities of white walls felt quietly depressing. The second, and in contrast, were my happy wonderings up and down the streets of central Lisbon, I felt like Alice in Wonderland, discovering something interesting round every corner.

As if in celebration of this rich graffiti culture, Lisbon has set up the Museu Banksy , an immersive ‘Banksy’ experience, bringing together, through reproductions, some of Banksy most famous pieces. A walk around in time and place, charting work from the early 2000s around Bristol and London, through France, America, the Gaza strip in Israel, all the way up to the most recent pieces in the Ukraine. It really gave a flavour of the power and spirit of what graffiti can do and left me feeling very engaged and revved up!

As some of you know, I often weave graffiti into my paintings to visualise ideas and internal emotional states. The dynamic, raw and colourful quality of it, the serendipitous dialogues it strikes up, offers endless possibilities and seem a fitting language in which to visually discuss the human condition.

I could definitely write a lot more about this subject, but will leave it here for now and invite you to reflect on your own encounters with this lively medium, and ask, what your views on it are?