Design Blog Journal: Art Movement

Art movement is a style of doing art which is extended over a period of time and is distinctly different than another movement of art. These styles are used to describe art within the same time period and region practiced by a group of artists. There are many types of art movements such as abstract art, conceptual art, expressionism, modernism, op art, pop art and so on.

The art movement that I am going to discuss here is Street Art.

Street art is also known as visual art which can be seen in public places, usually along the streets. To be more specific, it is called the 'post-graffiti' which is used to differentiate between contemporary space art work from vandalism, territorial graffiti and corporate art.

Bansky graffiti on the Bottom of Park Street Bristol

Street piano

Also, Street artists do not aim to change the definition of artwork, but they question the current environment with its own language. They attempt to communicate their work about socially relevant ideas with people through esthetic values without being imprisoned.

Street art depicting global warming in Berlin

Street art also include many other media and techniques such as mosaic tiling, murals, stencil art, LED art, video projection and so on. The video projection onto large city buildings is a new form of graffiti where it became a popular tool for street artists. Below are a few examples of street art using other media and techniques :

mosaic tiling

stencil art

Video projection art

Besides that, street art are often used by artists who wish to keep their art work unaffiliated and strongly political. Their work are mostly done without official approval in public areas. Hence, street art is occasionally called 'post-graffiti' or 'neo-graffiti'. It can be found around the world as artists usually travel to different foreign countries to spread their designs or artwork. Street has also become the most favorite platforms for artists because it is easier to access by anyone. Hence, street arts today have become seemingly popular in most parts of the world.

For example, Bansky, who is an anonymous street artist became popular for his challenging stenciled piece of art. Also, his artworks were different from others with striking images and slogans. He is also one of the Academy Award nominated street artist. Few of his art works can be seen below:

Peace Vs Love

Shop till you drop

Pissing guard

There are different motivations and objectives that drive street artists themselves. Nowadays, some street artists used "smart vandalism" as a way to raise awareness of social and political issues. However, the universal theme in most of the street art is adapting visual artwork into an arrangement which uses public space, allowing artists to reach a wider reach of audience compared to traditional artwork and galleries.

While most large cities in the world host some form of urban art or graffiti, there are a few locations which developed pioneering street art culture. These locations often attract artists to exhibit their art work. Some of these locations include Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe and so on.

In Malaysia, in a project funded by the Penang State government in conjunction with the Penang's Georgetown Festival, certain old walls has gained a new lease of life by an artist call Ernest Zacharevic. He left many beautiful wall paintings of children all across historical Georgetown, his artworks which include figure drawings and portraits were interesting, funny and are open to everyone's interpretations. Below are a few artworks that can found in Penang:

The famous "Little children on bicycle"

Reaching Up

The awaiting trishaw paddle

Boy on A Bike

Little Girl in Blue

Lastly, there is also 3D-graffiti which represents a new way of combining the art techniques of Renaissance with the gritty qualities of street art. 3D-street artists brought about a whole new meaning to graffiti which was before this, seen as vandalism in the form of images and letters scrawled on public property. A few famous artists include Kurt Wenner, Edgar Muller and Tracy Lee Stum.