"Asleep in your grave." -Cursive's The Great Decay

After liking Banksy's work, I decided to do a graffiti piece for this project. Some of you may have seen it in the tunnel on the way over to class today. Its on the S wall of the 13th street tunnel. I used six stencils of smoke stacks to create negative images and then a freehand portion of smoke rising from their tops. The most important part of this aesthetic-and the reason why I made them negatives instead of positives-is to cover up/emphasize the graffiti that is under them and around them. I wanted to play with varieties of pollution to represent decay.
I used this image as a template to digitally tag places that I don't yet have the gall to tag in reality (and to fulfill project requirements). I took pictures around town and made a series of four surfaces where I would have liked to put this same image on.

Chevron, as a gas company is an easy choice and relatively obvious for how it can be a form of pollution.


The fence that I put the smoke stacks on is dilapidated and not maintained, which through negligence has decayed on its own. This is the same reason I am artistically interested in rust.



The Jefferson ad on University that I would have loved to tag is a criticism on advertising as a form of mental/visual pollution. I was particularly inspired by this video by the Graffiti Research Lab and the Anti Advertising Agency for it. If you ever find yourself on University Ave and 10th St, you may find yourself hating this ad, too.


Finally, the Pepsi truck would have probably been the most fun to tag, especially as the Pepsi employee was standing right next to it. Anyway, that's a criticism on healthy vs. unhealthy foods.