Banksy is the most notorious Street artist in the world with pieces going well into the millions very little is known about Banksy and he is which is part of the attraction to the work. what we do know is that you started painting in Bristol organising one of the UK’s first paint jams with fellow graffiti artist Inkie in 1997. it is alleged that the graffiti Artist 3D from Bristol is Banksy. 3D also known as Robert Del Naja went on to most publicly be known for performing the band’s massive attack.

Through growing notoriety through the street art movement Banksy has managed to find himself at the forefront of contemporary art blending the lines of the street art world and the traditional art establishment. Banksy makes social commentary on this through his artwork Which only helps increase notoriety and therefore pushes the price up further. Within the street thought world there is a conflict between street art and graffiti embark see is very much seen as the frontman of the street art world with graffiti writers taking a disliking two new pieces on the street subsequently leaving them to being ‘bombed’ or ’tagged’.

The popularity of Banksy has been the most instrumental factor in changing public opinion on art found in the streets. this led to multiple street art festivals throughout the UK and all over the world, it has meant that contemporary galleries have taken more of an interest in Street artists meaning Banksy has been a maverick and paved the way for many other artists to create income without compromising the creative practice.

What I find interesting about Banksy is it as a collective of artists working to produce this artwork as opposed to one man I almost feel like Banksy is a brand which is taken the commercial art world by storm I find it very interesting the way they implement very thought through plans to execute street art pieces but yet have such notoriety within the public domain. not only does Banksy operate with stencils but also paints canvases, screenprints, T-shirts and sculptures all under the name of Banksy.

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.

The vanguard exhibition at M shed shows the growth of the street art from the early 1980s to the present day primarily focused on Bristol as this was one of the first UK cities to accept graffiti culture. Covering early graffiti writers such as 3D, Inkie, Nick Walker as well as many others.

What I found interesting is there was a timeline going from the 1980s showing everything which was an influence to early graffiti writing in Bristol such as style wars the early graffiti movie and also subway art the book by Martha Cooper. From that, it also showed the legal battles that certain artists face as it was purely seeing it as vandalism. What I find interesting about this exhibition is you can really see the growth of the culture and working alongside the original writers using their original sketches it really shows that people from the culture had a part in curating this show. I was impressed with how in-depth the archive images and photos were shown which really gave her perspective on the early culture.

Through the exhibition, it was really shown how transitional the street art world has been through the works of people like Banksy and how we went the more commercial route creating record covers for musicians. Which is only how to grow his brand as an artist. I was happy that there wasn’t too much of a focus on Banksy and this show shines the light on other creatives coming out as Bristol such as Nick Walker and Inkie. This really made me feel like the show was put together to honour the culture and to give a perspective on this world which isn’t necessarily easy to understand. Showcasing how from getting 100-pound fines for tags on city property to becoming a global art movement stemming from Bristol.

Really enjoyed the Mona Lisa statue by Nick Walker I think this is a perfect representation of the satirical comedy which runs to the theme throughout street art. Nick Walker from Bristol has gone on to be a commercial artist based in New York his career really stands from graffiti writing in Bristol undeveloped paying his creative practice from there. Bristol really felt like the right place for this exhibition to be held as am my personal opinion Bristol is the street art capital of the UK I love how ingrained it is in the culture and also celebrated and this exhibition did a great job of illustrating how far it’s come from being seen as mindless vandalism and how this interlinked with the culture of the music, the people and how it’s played its part in social change.

The work here shown at the Peterborough museum was on loan from John Bandler’s gallery meaning that most of the works were for sale which gave an interesting perspective of where the art market is going in reference to art from the street. Banksy’s most expensive work is shown at 2,000,000. I notice how through this exhibition it wasn’t just the aesthetic quality of the work that people are buying but it was in fact a culture and a moment in time represented through these art pieces which is what drove the price of works up. For me, this exhibition really represented the way that street art is going and how it’s evolved from its origins of graffiti being painted on trains in the 1970s and New York.

I thought it was a very interesting location for the exhibition as from walking around Peterborough there seems to be very little graffiti and street art culture which this exhibition is derived from. This says to me that is about this exhibition was trying to sell work to the upper-middle-class and selling the idea to people who are outside the origins of this culture which is where a distaste within the culture evolves as it’s taking accessible art which is always been seen for the people and gatekeeping it so only a select few can afford to own this work and a minority can view at a cost.

 This exhibition was saturated with Banksy’s work I feel this is solely to pull the crowds in around Peterborough as people who want to invest in the culture will only know abuzz named like Banksy inevitably done to pull people in and money into the museum at £8 per adult ticket. After speaking to the receptionist, I later understood the price would also be to cover the insurance which is something I wouldn’t have necessarily thought of without having the conversation this shows some of the hidden costs involved with putting on a high profile exhibition such as this.

It was good to see the quality of work especially the screenprints from Banksy I took a lot of mental notes as this is the process I’m experimenting with now I could see where I could take the process within my own imagery.

Overall I was impressed with the works on show such as Pure Evil, Invader, Ben Eine, Blek Le Rat, Kaws, and Banksy as these have all been key figures in the growth of street art as a global movement. But I can’t help having a slight distaste for the focus on capital and Commission over culture I feel this was lost within this show. Because of the location and who the show was targeted at and also because it feels like the show has been curated by people outside of street-art culture.

Subway Art

Subway Art is a collaborative book by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant, which documents the early history of New York City’s graffiti movement. Originally published in 1984, the book has been described as a “landmark photographic history”. Known by many as ‘the bible’ of graffiti, Subway Art quickly acquired the dubious accolade of becoming one of the most stolen books in the United Kingdom. The title is a reference to the New York City Subway, where a lot of the city’s graffiti was set during the late 20th century. The book features artists such as Zephyr, Seen, Kase2, Dondi, and Lady Pink. 

After watching this film at Graff works in Leicester it really helped me grasp the cultural significance that Martha Cooper has within urban arts

Within creating this zine ‘Writings On The Walls’ I could really see myself taking it a step further and turning this into a series visiting different cities in the UK such as Manchester, Liverpool, Leicester, London. Anywhere that has a strong urban art scene and documenting the culture as I feel it could develop into being quite an interesting series as I’m not aware of any sort of publication focusing on that at the moment.

I created my book using InDesign this is a big learning curve as I’ve never used the programme to this extent before but I felt I developed my skills within the programme and put me in good stead to use it in the future. I played around a lot with the composition and positioning of each image and what would work together in a sort of narrative. primarily focusing on visually similar images to compliment each other within the layout my goal was to make it look as professional as possible I’m something that people would enjoy viewing and interacting with.

This image I’ve created is 3 shots of a 35MM black and white film that I shot handheld then in Photoshop overlayered each other to create one continuous I use different levels of contrast and brightness using the histogram of the image to create contrast so it can be seen that it’s three different images put together. what I personally enjoy about the image is it’s paying homage to early graffiti writing as it’s a New York subway train which is what graffiti writers were painting in the 70s in New York which led to this global phenomenon of street art. this was actually painted on a backstreet in Bristol but I purposely tried to take it out of that context as much as possible.

Once I’d printed this image out I then went on to hand draw my own graffiti piece to pay homage to the early works which were painted on subway trains I did this using posca pens as this is the way most coloured graffiti sketches are drawn I tried to make it sit on the border of the image while also being playful with the white border painting drips off the piece. the lettering says ‘MOONEY’ as most graffiti writers have a name they write as the ‘ey’ I put in a speech bubble is with my accent ‘ey’ is also a greeting. I enjoyed experimenting with both black and white and colour in this piece and layering it to add more to it than just the photographic print.

I really enjoyed these images that Man Ray created within his darkroom practice after seeing these I learned that the process is called solarisation and from that, I went to the darkroom to experiment and understand the process for myself.

This is an image of the setup I had in the darkroom so I was processing by hand using the different trays of developer fixed and stop as the image would start to develop in the first tray I would say get back out and run to a light that I had set up on one of the enlargers to expose the image before placing it back in to develop it more and then having to leave to hand drive for 24 hours before digitally scanning them so I had a digital copy as well as the actual physical one.

This was the result of my experimentation of the darkroom of using solarisation

I started to understand how if I change the variables of the amount of lights or how long I left it in the developer it would change the contrast and how much effect the solarisation took.

With this image I’m really happy with the subtleties but the solarisation as really what it did was just create more contrast in the image which I felt complimented it when taking this image and moved ahead of the model thought about my composition and as she was walking up the stairs I shouted her name so she turned around and that’s when I took the shot in that moment so it had this candid quality to it and I feel it’s come out so well because she had no prior thought of how is she going to present herself in front of the camera just a very natural representation.

With this image I really love the texture the feeling of movement from the model the way there’s a slight blur so the focus isn’t massively on her but it still captured the essence of a person in the image creating scale I feel this solarisation is where it really effectively on the sky as it’s very clear that the sky doesn’t naturally look like that it’s created a lot more contrast within the wall and I personally enjoy the bleed of the white lines on the floor onto the photographic paper because that’s something that happens when using these process is and to me, it shows that it’s been hand-processed because it is very difficult to digitally manipulate something like that because it’s so natural the way it’s been produced.

Again with this one I feel the solar as I solarisation worked well within the shot itself there’s a lot of reoccurring patterns tying the model in the foreground to the background grounding her in her setting the solarisation is only helps emphasise this through the colours and shades which it’s pulled out of the image this is one of my personal favourites.

I started to discover if I experimented with the way I was hand processing the images in the developer I could create a texture on top of the image while it was still exposing creating different shapes and layers of contrast within the image which I found really interesting I really felt like this was taking the experimentation within solarisation a step further as this wasn’t pre-planned it was just a development while working with the process.

I also shot medium format colour film Which are then sent off to a lab to be processed I’m happy with the results which came back as I feel they work effectively. with this first image I really love the composition the symmetry within the building edgy the guy sat on the edge I feel really adds the image even though he had nothing to do with me I waited for him to look in this angle because I thought our use is to my advantage instead of waiting him to leave or asking him to leave for the shot and it creates a dialogue of who is this person why they sat there as they almost become a part of the environment themselves or products of it so to speak and it doesn’t detract any attention away from the model who is the primary focus of the image.

I really love how strong this portrait is there’s such an emphasis on the eyes which creates a dynamic between the image and the viewer the way her mouth is hidden in the jacket creates this solve mystery and distance with the juxtaposition if the eyes pulling you in I really enjoy the texture in the background I think it’s worked as a great backdrop and doesn’t pull focus from the model whatsoever. with this being a strong portrait I decided to print it at A2 and exhibit this as I feel in more of a gallery setting it really will catch people’s eye because of the direct contact created through the lens.

Making Positives for Photo Screenprinting and Photo Etching in Adobe Photoshop

1. Open your digitized source images in Photoshop.
   1. File>Open or Command-O
   1. Navigate to desired files, select and click Open

• Create a new document.
  • File>New or Command-N
  • Name your document: Surname_ScreenPositive or Surname_EtchPositive
  • In the Preset dropdown menu, choose Custom
  • In the Size dropdown menu, choose
    • For Screenprint: Set Width and Height dropdowns to 20×28 cm
    • For Etching: Set Width and Height dropdowns to 4×6 inches
  • In the Color Mode dropdown menu, choose Grayscale.
• Rotate Image if appropriate.
  • Image>Image Rotation>90^o CW

• Check Image Size of your source image. (These steps must be done in order).
  • Click on one of your source image tabs
  • Image>Image Size
  • Choose Centimeters in the dropdown menus for Width and Height
  • Un-tick the Resample box
  • Input 300 pixels per inch in the Resolution field

• Move your source image onto your positive.
  • Select>All or Command-A
  • Edit>Copy or Command-C
  • Click the tab for your positive
  • Edit>Paste or Command-V
  • Repeat stages 3 to 5 with another source image in order to create a layered image

• Edit your image as desired. (See image-editing handout).

• Flatten your image.
  • Layer>Flatten Image

• For photo-etching: Switch to Black and White.
  • Image>Mode>Grayscale
  • Discard color information? >Discard

               For Screenprint: Turn the image into CMYK mode and do a 4 colour separation

1.  Image>Mode>CMYK
2.  Choose Channels in the Windows dropdown menu. On the right hand top corner you will find a small menu icon, click on it and choose Split. Photoshop will generate 4 different versions of your image each containing information, 1 for each of the 4 colour Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black. Apply a halftone to each individually as per point 9 and save them. Remember to make a note of which colour they correspond to.

• Apply a halftone.
  • Image>Mode>Bitmap
  • Output: 300, Use: Halftone, Click OK
  • For Screenprint: Frequency: 45 or 55, Angle: Cyan 15, Magenta 75, Yellow 0;  Black 45. Shape: Round, Click OK
  • For Etching: Frequency: 65, Angle: 82.5, Shape: Round, Click OK

1. Save the halftone image.
   1. Image>Mode>Grayscale, click OK
   1. File>Save As
   1. Select JPEG/Tiff from the Format dropdown and click Save.
   1. Save at High Quality (at least), and click OK.

1. Print your positives to size on 80-90g paper in black and white. Make sure you use a laser photocopier rather than a digital printer as it is important that the positives are printed with black ink for good results.

I went through the process of learning how to screenprint first by putting the emulsion onto the screen and letting it dry after exposing the screen to my images using UV light this then created the exposure onto the emulsion from that I washed the screen off I was able to attach it into the screen and screenprint from that.

I first experimented with a half-tone pattern using CMYK to create an image I had photographed for my publication ‘writings on the walls’ this process taught me the fundamentals of screen printing how to set up my screen correctly, use a squeegee and develop the image with the four different layers of acrylic paint mixed with medium. I really enjoyed this process and found the images that I created successfully, and I was also able to do a lot of experimentation by applying the layers differently whether that be with colour or composition.

After developing the fundamentals of screen printing and understanding where I could take the technique. I started using my own portraiture to develop my style with Photoshop to screen print. At first, I used the process of layering up the image to be as accurate as the original image created in Photoshop. but as the process went on, I found it a lot more free to experiment with the composition of the image how I was using the layers to overlap each other or to create contrast within two different colours already on the paper. I found it interesting to see the different colours interact with each other on the page creating different shades of colour I found this an interesting part of the work that was developing. I then went on to develop this work on a larger scale at A1. I felt the mix of all six colours works well at this scale as each portrait could be looked at as individual or as a collective. I was drawing from Andy Warhol’s Mona Lisa when producing these prints as I find the composition within those artworks interesting. I found the more runs of prints that I developed and worked on my technique for screen printing got a lot better and it started to feel a lot more natural to me when working with the screen. This helps me develop my creative practice a lot further as it goes hand in hand with the photographic work I was already producing enabling me to create a whole new body of work and push my imagery further than I have been able to before.