Is graffiti art? This is a question that people have argued about for years.

I have been fascinated by graffiti from a young age and have studied graffiti art and artists closely in many art projects over the years.  As a painter and drawer I told myself that with a little practice I’d be a graffiti artist extraordinaire in no time…HA…how wrong I was!  After reading online tutorials and designing graffiti letters and words in my little sketch book, I felt I was ready to attempt a graffiti mural of my own. I finally gave up after the 50th attempt at an outline as I ran out of wall space…I then realised that it was time to give up even trying to get the hang of it!

Needless to say this experience only made my admiration and respect for graffiti artists to grow and in my personal opinion they are some of the most skilled artists on the planet. I really think that people should praise the time, effort and talent that goes into producing even the simplest pieces of graffiti work.

Another experience that intensified my pro-graffiti point of view was after a visit to Heidelberg, Germany. After walking around one too many German Christmas markets with the family, I felt it time to go off and explore the city by myself. After about an hour of walking I stumbled across a busy main road that could only be crossed by using a subway.  Being a girl on my own and knowing that I could only say… “Wie komme ich am besten zum bahnhof bitte?” (what is the best way to the train station please?) in German if I was to run into any trouble, I was keen to just run through the subway whilst praying that nothing would happen to me!

When I got down there however all of these fears just disappeared as I discovered the most colourful and exciting subway I have ever seen. Every wall was covered in graffiti as is shown in the following couple of pictures I took:

I found this experience enchanting and ended up staying there for hours taking hundreds of photos. The encounter got me thinking that if graffiti can change a normally dark, drab and ugly subway into something this spectacular, how amazing would cities look if governments used graffiti art more often to cover up similar eyesores found in any big city?!

Being a graffiti enthusiast I rushed down to the Tate Modern as soon as I heard about its Street Art exhibition, held earlier this year. The exhibition included huge graffiti murals on the side of the Tate Modern building and needless to say drew in a sizeable audience. I really am wishing that such a large display of graffiti art in such a popular art gallery will make those opposed to graffiti art think twice about their view.

Seeing the work that’s inside the vast depths of the Tate Modern, such as Ellsworth Kelly’s Black Square with Blue shown on the Tate Modern website…

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/explore/work.do?id=21633&action=3

I don’t think these “art aficionados” will take much persuading!

• dudits wrote ...

• at 21:45, Thursday 20 November 2008

"Read a fitting quote the other day "Graffiti is the symptom; Alienation is the disease..." "

• NewbieDoo wrote ...

• at 16:59, Monday 20 April 2009

"Some of the art work is amazing and, as you say, definitely beats a drab grey subway and plenty of other bland, drab areas. How they even conceive their tags, let alone work out how to translate them onto such a large area using a spray can for the main medium is fantastic. "