Boulder, CO
27°
Cities, like people, are imperfect; they age, crack, and sometimes even crumble. Street art, like tattoos to skin, add an edge, evoke youthfulness, complexity, give historical context—like the changing of demographics and attitudes.
Street art’s story is being rewritten: one stencil, paint stroke, and graffiti-laced underpass at a time.
Street art is insidious. It bleeds onto walls, spills onto sidewalks, leaks onto trains, and procreates in architectural crevices. It’s violent, vibrant, expressive, political and apolitical, shocking, beautiful, and captivating. It’s anywhere and everywhere and a stable appendage of urban landscapes.
In the same way our cities are evolving to be more diverse, so too is our artistic palette evolving to fully appreciate the texture street art adds to eclectic neighborhoods.
Like many others, I once considered it destructive to the aesthetic harmony of urban design. And now any city I visit that’s void of street art feels soulless and sterile. Cities, like people, are imperfect; they age, crack, and sometimes even crumble. Street art, like tattoos to skin, add an edge, evoke youthfulness, complexity, give historical context—like the changing of demographics and attitudes.
It’s further evidence of how the once maligned art form is now a vehicle for powerful storytelling.
For example, in Washington, D.C. the accelerated gentrification of the once predominantly Black capital city (Known as “Chocolate City” in its heyday) has pushed large swaths Black residents to its territorial edges. In response, street art in areas like the popular U Street corridor depicts D.C. 's once vibrant Black culture: when go-go music, jazz clubs, and Black theater were the talk of the town.
It’s further evidence of how the once maligned art form is now a vehicle for powerful storytelling.
The disparaging narrative perpetuated by the emergence of political graffiti tagging in the 60s is no longer apt. Street artists commissioned to “paint the town” now validate their brand of artistic expression—from monumental murals, to large-scale paintings, to intricate stencils—as more than the weapon of subversive agitators; you’re more likely to hear the words “activist street artists” than “defacers of public and private property.”
Though, modern icons like Banksy (a world-famous British artist, political activist, and film director) and Fin DAC (a self-taught, non-conformist, Irish-born urban artist, who dubs his work Urban Aesthetics), are preserving the traditional underground undercurrent of street art while inserting themselves into mainstream culture.
Fin DAC’s works—never showcased in formal artistic spaces—are particularly distinctive. Drawing inspiration from graphic novels, he’s famously enamored with stencil-based “Asian mystic and mysterious beauty” and black and white portrayals of modern geishas. He also uses a unique painting technique that gives the illusion of paint splatters—showing up mainly around his character’s eyes, like masks. His art is willfully obscure, expressive, and emblematic of street art’s future.
Modern street art straddles the delicate line between rebellious and artistic; It’s capable of transmitting multiple meanings and reflecting back something resembling an artist’s original intention and our own worldview.
