There are three levels of street art — murals, graffiti, and tagging — and we experienced all of them and more when we ventured out to Bushwick, Brooklyn recently.
Street art absolutely feeds me creatively.
Murals are pretty self-explanatory — they’re just large pieces of art painted on the sides of walls or buildings. Graffiti, on the other hand, is usually made up of handwriting and names. Tagging is like graffiti, but can be a little angrier. You usually find tagging on top of street art. It’s a counterbalance that’s going on all the time.
They don’t always get along, but they accept that street art evolves. It won’t be static, and that’s just part of the game.
Tagging’s really just about branding. So, if you put up some killer piece of photorealistic art, it wouldn’t be completely unheard of for someone else to come over and write their name on it to further their brand.
But enough about that, here’s some of the street art we discovered in Bushwick:
First, we came across a big piece by D*Face. A massively popular artist, he comes from the same timeframe of greatness as Banksy does.
Here, the artist used the shadows from the natural, organic tree life to their advantage. This was all intentionally put together and crafted so the tree and shadow became part of the actual art. So sweet.
Next, we saw a great example of what is called “can control.” This artist knew exactly where they were going here. It’s almost like choreography.
I assume this piece is meant to portray Einstein as a receiver or listener because of the big, circular ears. The artwork visualizes taking in more information than is being spilled out, but that’s just my guess — I can’t be sure.
The richness of culture and diversity in New York is unlike anywhere in the U.S. This city’s really second to none when it comes to amazing street art.
