History of Art

History of Street Art (Banksy)

•On his way to becoming an international icon, the subversive and secretive street artist Banksy  turned the art world upside-down.

•Banksy is a British artist—graffiti master, painter, activist, filmmaker and all-purpose provocateur—made it on the list of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2010. He supplied a picture of himself with a paper bag (recyclable, naturally) over his head. Most of his fans don’t really want to know who he is. But they do want to follow his graffiti art—or, “bombing” some might call his work—walls in Bristol, England, during the 1990s to the artist whose work commands hundreds of thousands of dollars in the auction houses of Britain and America. Today, he has “bombed” cities from Vienna to San Francisco, Barcelona to Paris and Detroit. And he has moved from graffiti on gritty urban walls to paint on canvas, conceptual sculpture and even film, which was nominated for an Academy Award.

 •Graffiti art’s modern history came from low origins. World War II seems to be the starting point of graffiti art.
•The word graffiti actually came from the Italian word ‘graffio’, which means ‘scratch’. It is interesting to know that graffiti has been around since the dawn of human civilization, when the prehistoric man learned how to make colored powder and created images. Ancient cavemen scrawled and painted images on the cave walls. Romans wrote on the walls of the buildings of their conquered cities. Ancient cities such as Pompeii has revealed graffiti, election slogans, and even obscene drawings. Graffiti was a popular propaganda medium during the World War II, both from the Nazis and anti-Nazi groups.                                                                    

•Today, graffiti art is now a respected and new art form, a rich medium with no restrictions and plenty of freedom to work with.
•Shepard Fairey (of Obey) and Banksy are both very popular street artists. They have  very similar art styles.  They are two undeniably influential urban talents, both with careers firmly rooted in outdoor art, both active for about the same periods of time, yet the makeup of the current markets for their respective work could not be more different.
•The images below are (top) my interpretation from the Obey project (bottom) done by Shepard Fairey.

•Then I did a polynomial project of an elephant head. I used different shades of grays and shapes to create a 3D looking image. Then, I combined the sun rays and the polynomial elephant to complete my project and give it a different touch, other than Banksy's and Shepard Fairey's but still keeping the look.