Stencil Friday

An, exceptional example of contemporary art, two brows up! We should not get carried away with the medium and start to think about the ideas, or the conceptual significance the artist is trying to convey. It’s not so much the medium it’s the message that matters.

“Everybody has a price” is not only a brilliant example of technical competence with an air brush/aerosol cans, it also manages to reconceptualise one of the most flaunted images in the history of art. That is, the creation of Adam by Michelangelo. The appropriated image of God supposedly giving life to Adam, is now “re-presented” to offer up a plethora of new meanings…given the location of this work, and the “black humour” evident in the title, a possible interpretation may be that illicite drugs open up the mind to experiences unattainable through normal perception, as consistent with the referenced iconography (images of hands) God giving life to Adam.

We may also think that everyone has a price, is a reminder of our own mortality
and the very depths of depravity represented by the human condition, i.e humanity selling it’s sole to the divine, or individual posing as, for a short but perhaps rapturous orgy of earthly delight. In summery, a brilliant example of contemporary street art, reminiscent of artists such as banksy, mr brainwash ect, the image holds true to the laconic dark humour characteristic of this style of art.

Lazy I said :

Learning music / playing a piano is a little different to applying downward pressure to the top of an aerosol can while it’s pointing in the correct direction.

Not really, you just bash on the keys in a particular order?

My point was, some people can do creative things, and others not, while substantially doing the same thing. I can cut out a stencil and spray paint through it onto a surface, but I can’t begin to create what ELK does. That doesn’t diminish ELK’s work.

Learning music / playing a piano is a little different to applying downward pressure to the top of an aerosol can while it’s pointing in the correct direction.

Lazy I said :

I love how stencil art is hip and trendy but graffiti art (not tagging… for the 100th time) isn’t.. especially when stencil art takes far less skill.

1. Download image
2. Print
3. Cut out
4 Mask / Paint
5. Look at me.. i’m an ‘artist!’

I assume you also pick on photographers, ’cause all they do is point and shoot? And musicians just download the sheet music and play it? Just because there are a lot of bad examples of something out their doesn’t take away from it as a whole.

Also, in your 5 point example, I think you’ll find a lot of the people you are complaining about haven’t figured out the “masking” part.

There does seem to be much blurring of the line between stencil and airbrushing in some of those pieces. However I suspect it will only help the artists gain some mainstream acclaim.

Spotted today on my lunchtime walk.

I love how stencil art is hip and trendy but graffiti art (not tagging… for the 100th time) isn’t.. especially when stencil art takes far less skill.

1. Download image
2. Print
3. Cut out
4 Mask / Paint
5. Look at me.. i’m an ‘artist!’

“Everybody has a price” looks a lot more like air-brush work than stencil work to me…