Street Art

The focus of my art is to break the stigma of what can be considered “fine art”. In my mind, someone's work should not be discriminated against based on their medium of choice but rather the content and quality of their work. I took a lot of inspiration from Mark Bradford, a visual artist who, despite using a variety of non-traditional mediums to make his work, is shown in some of the most prestigious art shows around the world. He talks about taking a medium like colored paper and having it demand a place in a gallery next to an oil painting. This message inspired me as prior to this class I had absolutely no fine art experience, so I felt like I needed to prove that my work deserves a place on the wall just as much as any of my peers. This lack of experience forced me to turn to something that I was familiar with, which was street art. I wanted to do my own interpretation of street art and rather than bring the art to the street, I brought the street to the art. I went around my neighborhood and ripped advertising posters off the walls and fences of abandoned buildings. I then used these organic elements of colors, shapes, and images as my pallet from which to work. This process allowed me to recreate and redefine the stigma surrounding the fine art world as well as my own artistic identity.