JOIN IN THE FUN ~ CHAT ABOUT QUIRK NO. 18! |
"Infinitely Yours"
Once upon a time, there weren't such things as aerosol paints and graffiti crews and midnight raids on innocent buildings, trains and white delivery vans. The city walls were at peace.
Those times are long gone though, and here in Paris street art, to give it its most respectable label, is thriving.
Indeed, a walk though certain areas of the city resemble more an open air art exhibition than the streets of a modern capital where image is almost everything.
The good new for street artists is that their creations will probably have been captured by a good few lenses for posterity, and will be jollifying blogs around the planet for years to come.
I started adapting my art for the street a while ago now, and although I was going to say that I had 'joined the movement', that's not really true, because for a start you don't meet many people at 4 o'clock in the morning, (and those you do you'd often rather not), and secondly, a lot of street artists aren't necessarily the cute and cuddly type. Art is intensely personal, and it's often best to let the images do the talking, I reckon.
Having said that, I'll completely contradict myself and admit that I am in the process of interviewing and getting to know a few of them, and it's an enriching process.
The image at the top of this section is a collaboration between myself and Gregos , who paints plaster casts of his own face, smiling, kissing or sticking his tongue out, and sticks them up around the city. He's into collaborations in a big way and I thought it would be pretty cool to get involved. His idea is that people from around the world paint his perfectly white face any way they see fit and stick it up somewhere in their home town. Or you send it back to him and he does it for you in Paris.
I chose the second option, and actually went out with him as he did so, and an illustrated article and interview will appear on Paris If You Please when it does. "There are hundreds and thousands of walls in Paris serving no good aesthetic or historical purpose whatsoever..." |
It was interesting to try and apply my infini2 concept to a face, but I think I managed to remain true to it. You could imagine the purple and green stripes wrapping around the back of his head, and the missing part of the sun rising high on his forehead can be found setting slowly into his chin (or is it the other way around..?). See the last image below for my inspiration for the face painting.
So my 18th quirk is my Paris street art, which is starting to well and truly invade the city streets - go have a look for yourself.
A note to those, who like myself, love the old and authentic Paris, or any other city for that matter: there are hundreds and thousands of walls in Paris serving no good aesthetic or historical purpose than stopping you from seeing into people's bathrooms and bedrooms, and these are fair game to the average street artist.
What I don't appreciate is those who put their work on any historical monument, property which is clearly not theirs, churches, other people's art and so on. On the other hand, a cheekily placed piece which is a visual reference to something famous nearby or across the way is cool. And we all make mistakes; that's as far as I'll go.
The 'quirk', to justify calling my street art a Paris Quirk, is certainly there.
Look at any of the square pictures on this page or in the street when you find them. You can ALWAYS imagine taking the left-hand column and putting it over on the right and the picture will continue right along without the slightest break. You can do the same with the top or bottom row: put the top row down to the bottom, or vice versa, and the picture continues perfectly.
Which is why I call them infini2, because there is no beginning and no end to my paintings. I sell the big ones on canvas without a pre-set configuration and leave it up to the purchaser to decide which of the literally billions of possibilities they like best.
You can click on the above images if you are interested to go to a larger version and some sort of explanation of them, although I understand that many people prefer just to let the images do the 'talking', and that's fine too. I do welcome comments - there's no need to like them, but no need to be rude either ;-) - and invite you to leave your thoughts on the blog page for this quirk by clicking one of the 'Join In The Fun' boxes above or below. And thanks for looking... and seeing?
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