photorealism

TERMS(or what I mean by the use of.)
    Post Graffiti    =art produced in public spaces, though predominantly street or urban spaces. Occupying the physical space graffiti would , but moving beyond graffiti’s motivations.
     Graffiti          =aerosols used to make paintings. Trad.Graffiti = writing your name.
     Art                =Message/insight/information embedded in an action or object.
     Craft             =Skill set. Technique.
     Stencils        =aerosol paints sprayed thru templates. Basically       a high effort, high craft, frequently low result highly portable printmaking medium.

North Ainslie Primary School

Lets start by saying that Art re-presents the world. That a piece of art reframes some aspect of the world.
Standing on the shoulders of these proclamations, what place has photorealism? As a single work/piece viewed in isolation, how does it move beyond a technical exercise? How does it reframe what it re-presents, for some wordy gain? What is the art element to this otherwise craft heavy exercise.

Green gang-gang

Saraton Lane Civic

Lets say that a work of Art is something that stands up to repeated viewings.
Lets say that a work of art is sum of its  parts, equally technical and intellectual. Art should extend Craft. (I look here towards the laboured production of photorealism, not that of a mechanical nature.)
So what is the intellectual action of photorealism? Disassociation? Re-contextualisation? What fresh insight achieved through a slice of world? A world in multiples? What point the labour of capture and reproduction?

David St Turner

Okay so there is a long history of re-presentation in art and a relatively short history of Art in Post Graffiti. But re-presentation is troubling. The mechanical (potentially mindless) act of reducing a 3d world to a 2d segment isn’t enough. I guess this is the weakness of photo style Stencil reproductions. A direct technical exercise does not art make. I wonder too, if my distaste for Stencilled photorealism is more closely linked to the very real potential of mechanised process. Logan Hicks built a practice around emotively colouring photographs as stencils, but is now moving towards building both the image and stencil.
It is becoming popular (allowable) in Trad Graf too. And again simply substituting a piece (name in letters) for a figure/fragment/character isn’t enough., or by my measure shouldn’t be enough. But why? And what extension of these is an improvement?  Artists like Best Ever , Herakut and ECB fall on the outside edge of this conversation. As they use mess and noise within their compositional repertoire over pure reproduction.
The Craft of image making has naught to do with Art making.

Mort St Braddon

Girraween St Braddon

House keeping

 Some of these sites are sitting idle and some are no longer relevant.Those which live on, for the most part will redirect you anyway. Interestingly a lot of these cats have now set up blogs. Make of that what you will about targeting audience and attention spans in general.(chance here for more words at a later date).
Im just putting them aside so i can change those on the sidebar to reflect what im reading more regularly now. Not being immersed enough to get the etiquette of linking , i figure it to be a further referent of my taste. Sure i will put links to mates in there, but only if im a regular/appreciative reader.

Ashley Wood; Aussie illustrator

        

Sat;get the book

        

pictures and another list of distractions

        

UTR,but mostly cause i don't have this address written down anywhere else

        

HNT; minimal detail maximising spaces

       

Tumor; fun with simple letters

        

Dave the Chimp;do i need this here, dudes not hard to find

       

Erosie;achive of what you shoulda been lookin' at.

       

amose; characters and drafting excitement

       

ekosystem; or Wooster you know how it works

           

Flying Fortress; a man a plan an aesthetic

       

Shida; cause you aught ta be lookin

     

HOOKED:mjar knows what's going on

        

Viagrafik's crew; design and street sharps, dig around for the old graf site

STICKERS

byrd Woden

Its about Art making. It’s about the maker. I prefer hand made stickers (not that I dislike vinyl stickers).

byrd Dickson

But a well made sticker, surrendered to the world by one, found by another is a choice thing. The effort of production and distribution being met by the effort of discovery.

Tags and Fashion advertising(Das Monk) Braddon

So to my mind there is a difficulty in settling on a single sticker and reproducing it ad nausea for years. Finding a balance between leaving enough to signify a brand, and being able/bothered to produce the numbers. Being in a sense stuck with this image while pursuing others relentlessly.

Happy1 Civic

FlyingFortress achieves this in broad nuanced strokes. Framing his ‘brand’ as an army of bears, leaves room to vary production, share exploration, and include artistic growth.
Shepard "Obey" Fairey has moved in this direction, but began by the drear process of ‘branding’ an aesthetic by repetition.

byrd Belconnen

Locally Shida was doing a great job of balancing repetition of style and variance of content round Brisbane, back when i was paying closer attention to that scene.
And as for noise right close locally, Sydney syder Mini Graff has volume and variation on her side. While the Sly Crue seem busy with pure text and a very workman like approach.

looking backwards moving forwards

Image from a project in Winter '07.
For want of a fresh start, im going to try re-invigorating this blog. More words better pictures, more about me and the local scene (or perhaps a balance of wide viewing and local stuff). no core promises no expectations.