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Graffiti is a part of what is now known as urban street art. Street art forms involve graffiti and spray paint, and yet the most successful graffiti does more than just show the name or word of the person who wrote them. Some graffiti is very skillfully done and it is now known that even graffiti has its rules.

Like any other good art, good graffiti relate to context and material and cause the viewer to think and evaluate their circumstances.

Graffiti has its own realm within the art world and some even play on the architectural forms it is painted on, even giving the effect of 3 dimensions. Graffiti has the ability to create the illusion of depth and complexity on a large two dimension a public surface.

Some street art is extremely straight forward, while other has a social message, still other artists actually clean public areas with their graffiti, which means that graffiti can be a wonderful way for an artist to express himself, and not necessarily express pure vandalism.

True, graffiti probably did start as a movement to deface and damage public buildings, but today we can see several examples of artists who have taken it one step further, and even help express the views of society and in places beautify instead of vandalize.

What the heck is reverse graffiti? Have you heard of cleaning the sidewalk or sandblasting a wall to get it clean? Is that a crime? Well it could be if its used for reverse graffiti

Many street artists have taken to expressing their views through a new graffiti process called reverse graffiti. The process works based on the same principle as the “wash me” signs on the cars. The artists cleans the areas of walls where he wants his graffiti to show through.

These artists look for terribly filthy walls and then armed with scrub brushes hoses and scrapers build their work. Some advertisers have even been known to use their services.

Among the pioneers in this graffiti method is Paul Curtis also known as “Moose.” He has been commissioned by different brands to clean in a different way.

Alexandre Orion, a Brazilian graffiti artists wanted to remind drivers of the impact of car emissions and he created skulls in one of Sao Paolo’s transport tunnels using this method. The city retaliated by cleaning the wall where the skulls were located. So he did the same on the adjacent wall of the tunnel. The city then retaliated by cleaning all of the tunnel walls.

Source and Photo: Inhabitat

Graffiti is everywhere. It can be found in every city, in every part of the world. It’s seen as obscenities, as tags, as signatures or even great works of art. But now many of these street artists have taken green on. They express the idea of going green in their art work.

A street artist Edina Tokodi is going green in Brooklyn. She has animals made of moss growing all over the sides of buildings. Her work is meant to show people that pass by about the world being a more environmentally friendly place. Her idea is to connect city livers with nature. She uses moss in her art work because of its strength and ability to grow under harsh conditions. She finds that sometimes she has to repair her work a little.

Other artists are also going green, but doing what they call reverse graffiti, A process where they find dirty public surfaces and clean it up and then place their artwork on it. Some reverse graffiti artists receive some flack from the cities where they live and are still fined and asked to unclean or paint over the wall they just livened up.

First read about it at: Inhabitat

One of the newest waves in graffiti art is a really unique method that leaves no traces, messes or paint. Light graffiti is made with different types of lights and then time lapse photography.

This type of graffiti allows artists to create things they never would have been able to do with paint. And the best part is that there is no vandalism involved.

Different types of light sources are used, such as flash lights, glow sticks, bike lights, blinking lights and any type of light source that can work on batteries. Some artists have even been known to use torches and fireworks.

Once their artwork is created they take time lapsed photograph using a tripod, a few minutes to a few hours later nothing of the graffiti is left, which means there is no vandalism that occurs.

This new graffiti allows artists to tag things that were impossible to tag before and can even use people or make their presence known in their work. No one complains about this type of graffiti. When the light is gone the only trace that is left are the photos.

Photo from: 248am; Artist: Michael Bosanko

Bansky is best known in London, but his work is also becoming well known in the United States. If you have never heard of Bansky, he is a well known English Graffiti artist. Although he doesn’t work in your typical graffiti art, his is much more than just a spray painted name on a wall. Bansky has never been to one of his own shows, and nobody really knows who he is.

Bansky distinguishes himself from other graffiti artists because of his stencil technique, which allows him to make his graffiti art faster and it also allows his art to be recognized.

His work raises eyebrows, makes people think, and he makes money. A recent work auctioned at Sotheby’s made over $500,000 dls.

Besides his graffiti work, he has published three books with images of his work and quotes about society that go with it.