Graffiti as Art 

2.1      

           

-Thesis Statement: 

            An area of writing that interests me is graffiti as a subculture.  

           

-Rational: 

            I am curious as to around what time period people started using the streets to express their art and ideas. I have always been very interested in art and although I have never officially used spray paint, I did take a painting class when I was in high school. In class, I always had to come up with different materials to paint on and I always found it much more exciting to paint on something other than a typical, white canvas. This is why I find graffiti so interesting, despite it being illegal. As far as I know, graffiti artists use spray paint to create their art, but I am also interested in researching this some more and finding out more on what creating graffiti entails. At the beginning of this year on the news, the reporters were talking about how the arrest of an artist, known as Banksy, was a hoax and that they still not have uncovered the real identity of this person. I had not previously heard of Banksy, but I remember reading about him on twitter and I googled him and looked at some of the art he has made. I found it so interesting that no one knows his identity, and he is still managing to create these pieces of art that have a strong message behind them.  Since then, I could not remember this instance, but when my teacher, Mr. Cirio, emailed me about him, I finally remembered this artists name and I did not even know he had made his way to the streets of New York. I now realize that this was a way I could incorporate my love of art with writing.  I am so interested in art so I would love to learn more about the meaning behind certain graffiti art works and the messages they are trying to say. I am interested in the purpose of graffiti, and I cannot think of a better concept to write about. Writing has taken so many forms, and this is one that I find the most unique and fascinating to me.  

 

2.2 Three Point of Inquiry:

1.  How is graffiti its own subculture?

2.   Is a group of graffiti artists like its own community?

3.  What sort of code of ethics to graffiti artists follow?

 

2.3 Research

            I am going to use the databases from the FSU library to see if I can find information on research on graffiti. I want the research I find to help me for my research paper and to support my claims. I will also look into other articles on art that may not be specific to graffiti, but I feel they may also be helpful in discussing the purpose of using art to communicate a message. Possibly, the library will have some books related to this subject.  I have done a simple google search to show me that this topic has sufficient information to write about. Even though the identity of Banksy remains unknown, I still believe I can find a decent amount of research on him from what I have found so far. I am going to also use google (aside from the databases) to research graffiti because graffiti is not that popular of a topic on the databases so I have to resort to other sources.