14 November 2006

Graffiti

Posted in art, graffiti at 2:47 pm by nomie

I kind of like what this artist named Banksy does. Ever since my friend Patrick introduced me to his stuff I’ve enjoyed keeping track of his shenanigans. Stenciling random images on surfaces around town is a trend that’s really caught-on in the past few years.

Here in Edmonton I always enjoyed the new things that would pop-up weekly on various surfaces along Saskatchewan Drive; my favorite being this stencil of Magnum PI.

Recently I got a lot of joy from the stencil of a dinosaur skeleton.  It was applied to a wall along a flower planter on the side of the main Canadian Blood Services building. There he was, Mr. T-Rex or whatever just creeping along, creating a little delight on a very drab wall in a very drab wintry scene. One day on the bus I was thinking about T-Rex and the little smile he always gives me, only to find that as I passed by his spot, he had been “erased.” Well, they had spray-painted or smudged something over him anyhow. Now instead of a delightful little piece of art, there is just a big ugly smudge on a big ugly wall. I don’t know how or who should decide what graffiti is good art, but I thought that was good.

If someone would stencil William Shatner’s face around town, that would make me very happy.