Street Artists and Their Work

When using the words “street art” to describe someone’s work, you are generally stating that their art is displayed for the public eye to see, and could be used through graffiti, stickers, posters, sculptures, or even video projections. Street artists’ main focus is to reach out to the public presenting something with ample amount of meaning without restrictions from the formal art world. The anonymity of street art interests me because I find it more expressive than formal artwork. I see it as a way to get people’s attention in an altered condition and getting their point across (whether it requires thought or is obviously stated). Some major street artists that we will focus on are Blek le Rat, Banksy, and Dolk. All of these street artists are European based artists, but some occasionally travel to America to express their talent through graffiti. These mentioned visual artists are known for using stencil graffiti, which uses cardboard or other media cut into an image to make it easily reproducible.

One popular street artist Xavier Prou, better recognized as Blek le Rat, is known as the “Godfather” of politically-conscious graffiti (Philby). He is said to be the Godfather because this “56-year-old Frenchman was stenciling city walls while Banksy was getting to grips with crayons” (Philby). Blek le Rat has been embellishing the streets of Paris since the early eighties, while also being an influence on today’s graffiti art. After traveling to New York in the seventies, the cities graffiti encouraged him to create a rat stencil, but he wanted to make a more original style. In Paris of 1981, he started branding the city with his rat stencils, attempting to create a raid of rats throughout the city. Prou says himself, “My stencils...

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...essing ones opinion in the form of vandalism, was an interesting topic to cover because I had already had interests in studying some street artists. Overall, the three major street artists covered in this paper, Blek le Rat, Banksy, and Dolk, all have work that I enjoy researching and I can identify these artists at my top three favorite artists of all time, although they do have their own unique differences.

Works Cited

"Dolk." Graffik Gallery . Graffik Gallery. Web. 3 Dec 2013. .

Greene, Leonard. N.p.. Web. 3 Dec 2013. .

. N.p.. Web. 2 Dec 2013. .

Philby, Charlotte. N.p.. Web. 29 Nov 2013. .