Ducking chain link fences in the dead of night, carrying a backpack full of aerosol cans, an artist scopes out his potential canvas and selects a high wall waiting to be graced with a spray paint masterpiece. He's not what most people would think of as a traditional artist - he paints graffiti, practicing an art form that has spread beyond the urban grit it typically is associated with.
Graffiti is often more associated with vandalism than with art. But with a growing acceptance of street art, most recently depicted in the Oscar-nominated documentary "Banksy's Exit Through the Gift Shop," some hope to rehabilitate graffiti's reputation as a legitimate art form. Second-year Engineering student Peter Chen is one of these people.
Chen first became interested in graffiti when he visited New York City during his freshman year of high school. He was inspired and immediately began asking himself what he had to do to become a graffiti artist. Learning an underground art as a teenager in suburbia, however, posed a challenge.
"There are no graffiti lessons," Chen said.
He relied on "a solid art background" and Google to teach himself the art form and began sketching out designs wherever he could. It was hard to find other artists in the suburbs, and though he eventually found a few other painters, Chen said his attitude toward graffiti was different.
"They weren't about the art; I was always about the art," he said. "For them, it was a hobby. For me, it was a passion."
Chen found that simply sketching wasn't enough; he had to get out into the streets.
"You can't just sketch without the paint," he said. "It's a tease."
He began to paint in spots around town he heard about through word of mouth, and his style improved and evolved.
Graffiti involves both art and recognition, Chen said. Most artists start with "tagging," painting their name in order to gain recognition. A "throw-up" is a more complicated version of a tag painted in bubble letters with multiple colors; it is also intended to help its artist gain recognition. But Chen focuses on creating "pieces" - short for masterpieces. Pieces are works of art that require intense planning and creativity. They are regarded with respect and admiration within the graffiti community, and, more recently, within the greater art world.
Third-year College student Seton Easby-Smith, outreach chair of the Art Students Society, shed some light on the growing legitimacy of graffiti as an art form. "It's a very up-and-coming style of artwork. Most people are knowledgeable about the artist Banksy, who makes really interesting and controversial graffiti. There is also the Graffiti Research Lab who create graffiti 'art,'" she said in an e-mail.
Yet part of the appeal of graffiti is that it is not a mainstream form.
"I think people like it so much because it brings to light notions of rebellion seeing as graffiti is basically art crime," Easby-Smith said.
Despite its growing acceptance as a legitimate art form, graffiti is illegal when painted without permission and artists often run into trouble with the law, as Chen did the summer of his sophomore year of high school. Chen and another painter heard of a secluded spot in Alexandria with high walls next to train tracks - the perfect location for him to create a piece.
"It was the Mecca of graffiti," Chen said. "People would come from New York [and] Philly to paint there."
The two artists spent three hours painting their piece, and during that time the police were alerted of their presence. The police took Chen and his friend in for questioning about their work.
The incident made Chen more conscious about his art. "Everything I do now is legit," he said, meaning that all the painting he does now is legal.
He has painted murals at his high school in Northern Virginia and in University fraternity houses, and has participated in art shows. For an Earth Week event last year, Chen painted a large canvas to be displayed on the Lawn. He also has established a contracted independent organization at the University as a way for other artists to come together and paint or critique each other's work.
Fellow club member Michael Herring echoed Chen's view about the rising importance of street art. "It's becoming a more publicized form of art, for sure," Herring said. "I think the integration of hip-hop culture into society has squelched many of the qualms and negative connotations that street art carried throughout its early years,"\nNow that he is less active in the street graffiti scene, Chen has invested much more time into another artistic outlet: clothing design. He incorporated his passion for street art into a line of T-shirts under the name Peach Brand Clothing, a play on his own name, P. Chen. Although the company first received orders only from within the state, mostly from Chen's friends, the label has begun to ship clothing to locations around the country. Chen said Peach Brand is more than aesthetically similar to his street art. Just as novice graffiti artists must begin with tags, building a brand requires a level of name recognition. On some level, this venture, too, is about "getting out and getting known," said Chen, who has pasted stickers emblazoned with the Peach logo around Grounds.
Herring said he believes Chen is making his mark. "His style is inimitable and precise," Herring said. "He definitely pours himself into his artwork, which is even more admirable than the superb quality of his work."
Although graffiti has a history and reputation of being an underground art form and is often maligned, Chen insisted it is alive on Grounds and that it can be appreciated as a legitimate art form. Even the long-standing tradition of painting Beta Bridge, something Chen has done once or twice, is a display of street art. He said he believes people are open to graffiti as an art form as long as it is done legally, showing that graffiti artists are just that - artists, and sometimes even businessmen.
Read More
A song lyric became my best piece of advice
By Emily Barrie | 6 hours agoToo often, people — including myself — get so attached to the idea of "forever" that we miss the value of short-term experiences.
At Emmy Squared, Detroit-style pizza is upstaged by star handhelds and sides
By Xander Tilock | 4 days agoEmmy Squared is a Brooklyn-based restaurant that serves Detroit-style pizza and recently expanded into Charlottesville.
Sustainability in the lecture hall and beyond
By Ingrid Gay | 6 days agoStudents in all three of these programs stress that now, more than ever, it is important to be learning about our environment.
