The Cold Turnkey

The public has had a love/hate relationship with graffiti. On the one hand, talented creatives such as Banksy have made walls a place to put a political point across, utilising stencils to create challenging graphics loaded with a nuanced political point. This sort of graffiti was bound to get fashionable with both the masses and the art critics : attention-getting to both eye and intellect. This type of graffiti is even bought as prints on canvas, and hung in suburban households and corporate meeting rooms.

Yet, what of the familiar variety - the tagger, the gangbanger kind - this kind of graffiti is often seen as vandalism, an offence committed by the talentless. However misinterprets graffiti as strictly art. To many people, it’s not only art, but a method to put your stamp on territory, or even a two finger salute : anti-social, anti-art, anti-establishment.

Spraying has invariably been an underground activity, even though the results are public facing. The targeted audience is often unbeknown. Is it for a rival gang? A communication to a single person? To the public? Perhaps it’s just gratuitous and out of nothing to do.

Whatever the causes may be, there appears to be some kind of continuous demand to spray graffiti on walls. Some city councils have admitted that graffiti isn’t a fad, so they’ve designated areas where graffiti is allowed - normally uninhabited areas, but from time to time more civic zones like temporary boarding surrounding urban construction sites.