Making My Street Art

 

 

     Warning! To anyone reading this right now, I want you to know that I am not an artist in any way, shape, or form. Now this piece of drawing you see on the concrete is something that I drew to represent the novel “I am not Sydney poitier”. If you look at the drawing it is easy to see that this guy is an African American: you can also see that he has an afro, and his red shirt had the letters “Black” on them. The most important about the drawing is the handcuff that you see on his hands (the little circles with the line attached to them).

     This drawing is supposed to represent the main character of the novel, which is Sydney. The inspiration for this painting came from the scene when Sydney got pulled over and arrested because he was driving a car that was considered “too good” to him to be driving. Why was it considered “too good” for him to be driving? The answer is simple: because he is black. Because he is an African American.

     The scene when Sydney got stopped by the police stuck with me because it shows just how looked down upon African Americans are. Someone might say that this is just a book and that does not happen in real life but I beg to differ. Although this book is based in the more racist stages of America, I feel as if there’s still a lot of judge mental people out there. Then again I can’t even blame them because a lot of African American males do tend to act

     This painting isn’t here to as a message that white people are bad, because I love white people. I have a lot of white friends; but rather it is there to remind us that even though we’re not in chains anymore, things still are not equal in America.

    

My Journey to Wynwood Walls

 

 

 

     My trip to Wynwood Walls was something to behold. I could have made a documentary about it. I chose the worst day to go, Sunday. My dad wasn’t too busy that day so I dragged him along with me to witness some street art. When we got there, parking was nowhere to be found. In other words it was pretty much nonexistent. Recognizing the situation, we rolled the dice and decided to become rebels. I proposed that we park the car in a tow away zone: after all there were plenty of cars parked there too, so there’s no way they would tow out our car first.

     After we parked, we ran out of the cars in circles trying to decide where we would go explore first: we gave ourselves twenty minutes because we didn’t want to risk anything. After a couple of minutes of scurrying around, and bumping into people, we finally got around to a picture that I found pretty interesting (this is the picture with me in it) I thought this picture was interesting because of his pose.  He had that “Thug Life” pose going around, so I said “hey, I’m thug life, he’s thug life, why not?”

     After that picture we ran around some more and ran into the little big green guy. I felt like fighting when I saw him; but I quickly realized that he had more abs than me so I snapped the picture and retreated. I honestly didn’t know what the guy was, Hulk? My dad thought that he was “beautiful.” I thought he was just an overfed baby in diapers.

     After all the sightseeing we ran back to the car like track stars (well me anyways, my dad would be the first one to die in a scary movie.) we got there out of breath, with sweat running down our foreheads, but satisfied. I didn’t know what three pictures to post because they were all so interesting to me. I sat there thinking about it, ended up losing my patience, and reverted to “eeny meeny miny moe.”

 

 

 

Street Art as Satire

Unknown. "All Those Shapes." All Those Shapes. Unknown, n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/13/Pinocchio_2006_Album.png

    I found this picture using the simplest method that I could of: I went on Google images and typed in, “satirical street art”, and boom images started popping up left and right. Amazing right? I know. Out of all the images that popped up, this one stood out to me the most. I laughed at first because it reminds of that Pinocchio commercial: “Did you know that Pinocchio was a bad motivational speaker?” Now let me be honest, I have no idea what this picture is about, or what it is relating to; but I can obviously tell that it is satirical.

       Call me an idiot, but I don’t even know who the guy in the picture is. I like his suit though, it fits him nicely: I own a couple of those myself.  Now if I had to guess, I’d say that the guy in the picture is some type of leader; but not just a leader, he’s a leader that lies a lot. Looks like I’m getting somewhere here. He’s probably Hitler’s younger brother or something of that nature.

       The cool thing about satirical street art, or satire in general, is that different people break down the meaning in their own way. For example, my interpretation of this might be totally different from someone else’s. To me, the picture portrays a lying leader; but someone else could be like, “Kervain bro you’re a savage, that guy in the suit is obviously a WWE wrestler.” And a third person could jump into the conversation and say, “You’re both freaking ridiculous, the little guy in the picture is obviously an alien porn star, don’t you see how long his nose is?” I guess the point I’m trying to make here is that we all have our different views on satire.

Street Art in Cultural Context

Unknown. Untitled. www.globalgiving.org. Unknown.


Unknown. Untitled. Port-au-prince, Haiti. Pinterest.com.Unknown.

 

     I did not have to do any online research on the street art above. This is because all the research I need is a phone call away. I could not really pinpoint or find any link to the street arts because there aren't many Haitians artists who have official websites. Most of them just paint the drawings and no names are left behind as to who the creator was.

   These murals definitely represent a cultural background. As soon as your eyes land on them you can tell that they are form the Haitian culture. Also the word Haiti is written on one of them.   These murals serve a great cause to the Haitian community in Port Au Prince, especially after the big earthquake that took place over there a couple of years ago. They serve as a reminder that Haiti itself, not just Port Au Prince is a very steadfast and unrelenting nation. No matter what you throw at them they will somehow, someway, find a way to overcome the trouble and hardships. For example if you look at the first mural, the creole words “Haiti pap peri” are written at the top of it, which translates to, “ Haiti will not perish.”

     My experience finding these murals was pretty interesting. At first I did not want to do research on a Haitian artist because I am Haitian and I figured I’d explore another culture. But I felt the need to do research on it because sometimes you just have to reconnect with you own culture. Sometimes you get out of tune with your culture even though you are around it every day. Looking at these murals reminded me of the years that I spent growing up in Haiti. It reminded me of all the pain and hardships my family had to go through to give me the opportunity to be here today.  These murals help remind me of my heritage and what it means to be Haitian.

What is street art?

 

 

Bogside artists, untitled, The Peoples gallery, 2014, unknown, bogsideartists.com, 1 January 2005. (citing for all three pictures They are all from the same source.) 

 

I chose the Bogside Artists: composed of Tom Kelly, his brother William, and Kevin Hasson. Now I initially choose the Bogside artists because I thought their name was kind of comical, and I love Ireland accents. I know...how immature of me. Their name may be comical but their artwork is genius. These three men are famous for painting twelve murals(fancy name for street art) that came to be known as The People's Gallery. They are placed in Rossville Street, specifically the Bogside area.

 

     The internet is to street art what salt was to people of ancient times, a means of preservation, and even more. Without the internet, street art probably wouldn't have been as successful as it is. Unlike the world's more traditional art forms, street art has a very short life span due to its lack of popularity to some people and neighborhoods. With the help of the internet this all changed. With the help of the internet street art becomes immortal...that is until you don't pay the internet bill of course haha.

     I found my street art on the Bogside artists official site, and I chose the street arts because they have a lot of history behind them. These paintings aren't called The People's Gallery for no reason. They uphold the spirits of the people in the Bogside area. These paintings represent past events of the peoples life and the Bogside artists are making sure that this history won’t be forgotten anytime soon.

      Street art is hard to define because it is so many things in one. To me street art is any art or painting that you won't find in fancy museums being critiqued by fancy critics. Street art is defiant, it provokes deep thought, and it will not be silenced.