Street art is an early art movement which evolved out of 1970s subway graffiti art becoming a global art movement Appearing in most cities graffiti and street art have found their way into everyday culture. The three cities I’ve covered in my research of Bristol Liverpool and Manchester. Taking interest in how the city’s landscape becomes an alternative gallery space open to anyone to participate in or be visually captivated by art.
What I find interesting is putting the art in the context of the street massively broadens viewership of the work and creates accessible artwork for everyone as well as bringing areas up and becoming more desirable as opposed to graffiti being a sign of an area on the decline.
what I have noticed is an incline of graffiti artists or street artists moving from the street but also into a more contemporary setting as well as still creating works of art on the street. artists such as Banksy, Nick Walker, and Shepard Fairey have created their reputations as streets artist. Inevitably increasing-price when their work does appear in a commercial or contemporary setting.
The streets of Bristol I found a major inspiration as it’s so ingrained in the culture, in my opinion, Bristol is the UK capital for street art being the home of, Banksy, Nick Walker, Inkie and many others. I think the way they approach art as their culture is a really refreshing idea is they also have a street art festival there called Upfest most years which promotes the culture and creates international opportunities for artists to paint all over Bristol very similar to how Leicester has to Bring the Paint every year. What the increase in popularity of street art is done is created more opportunities for paying festivals meaning the artists are being paid and given control of what are they want to put out into the public domain which is a new concept with the first legal paint jam being created by Banksy and inky in Bristol in 1997. these festivals give opportunities to artists as well as create a more unique desirable environment for urban architecture.
When I was in Liverpool some of the graffiti artists I know there have been paid to repaint streets for the back of film sets which was an avenue of income I wouldn’t expect a graffiti writer to go down but it’s an interesting avenue of income.
for me, I feel like I want my art to work in a commercial setting as well as using the streets as a gallery setting. I feel street talk develops our environment to a much more appealing place to be I think street art festivals are a great way for artists to get exposure as well as develop their craft and not be penalised or criminalised for having free expression in a different context outside the gallery. for me, the street is a gallery it’s just within a different context of the environment.