Brumgraff:
A look at the ever-changing Street Art on the walls and streets of Birmingham.
Brumgraff: A Look at the ever-changing Street Art on the walls and streets of Birmingham.
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Artist: Annatomix
What follows is a gallery of photographs that I have taken of street art or grafitti art, from around the Birmingham area over the last couple of years. It's by no means an exhaustive gallery, more simply I guess you could call it an overview of what I have seen and how I have sought to capture this art on camera. Where possible I have given credit to the original artist, but obviously this hasn't always been possible.
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Artist: N4T4
Grafitti is a bit of a dirty word. People have commonly associated it with loutish behaviour, urban neglect, derelict buildings and the pointless vandalism of public areas.
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Grafitti is, perhaps, the oldest Artform we humans have. Grafitti has been found dating back to neolithic cave paintings, even the ancient Egyptians and Greeks liked to scrawl their names upon their most majestic of buildings.
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It could be argued that grafitti stems from one of our most basic of urges, to make a mark, to write our names and say 'I was here', to record our progress or to make mockery of authority and express our outrage, boredom or disconnection from society.
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Ultimately Grafitti is an illegal act, the defacing of a wall, building or public space. Despite our growing tolerance and even veneration for grafitti, it remains a criminal act, and it has to be said there is sadly a lot of grafitti that has little or no merit beyond selfish vandalism.
There is also no denying that some artists cross the line to get to places they shouldn't necessarily be to display their masterpieces. But without that endeavour, that willful urge to push the limits, we wouldn't have such beauty. I think you just have to accept the rough with the smooth. Wine tastes good and fills you with good cheer, but the hangover's always a bitch.
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So, do I love grafitti? Oh gosh yes! Absolutely!!
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During the 20th Century, in places like New York, grafitti was an expression of youthful rebellion and social opinion that started out as scrawls on boxcars and subway trains and abandoned buildings in a new form of visual language that appropriated styles and genres to suit whatever a person wanted to say. There were, and are, no limits.
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It took root and spread, becoming a recognised sub-cultural art form that has captured the imagination of artists, photographers and writers alike. In places like Northern Ireland and the Palestinian West Bank, large murals were painted on houses and dividing walls in deeply provocative acts of political resistance and human defiance. Many of these murals remain today as symbols of political hope and identity.
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I think identity is one of the defining elements of grafitti, it is about people and the places they live in or inhabit, especially in those deprived and abandoned places where the authorities and politicians hold no sway over creative and personal expression.
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What began as (and remains) an illegal activity has evolved into a dynamic and ever changing art form that has made it's way from the streets into galleries and social spaces. Grafitti is now often referred to as Street or Urban Art.
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At it's heart grafitti is an ephemeral art form, blink and you'll miss it. It's art that captures the heart and soul of a place and its people. It's often provocative, in your face, ironic, laugh out loud funny, sometimes immense in size or quietly beautiful. Local and national heroes are often memorialised whilst other less worthy public figures are mercilessly ridiculed. It is joyous, touching and sometimes cruel, but that's life.
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Artist: Pahnl
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Where I live in Birmingham the street art changes week in week out. Most mornings on my way to work I detour through the Bournbrook Grounds, a pocket park situated behind the Aldi supermarket in Selly Oak. It backs on to a large electrical substation, the walls of which act as an enormous canvas for local artists.
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Here the grafitti is tolerated, and consequently it's become a test bed for many local artists to try out new works. The art changes all the time, it's wonderful.
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Artist: Hoakser
The next few pictures were taken in the park, over the last few months. Sometimes I will see three different pieces painted on the same wall in just a week. The art is never boring, even if it's not always to my taste. It's colourful, dynamic, eye catching and always interesting. It's like a free open air gallery, the smell of fresh paint fills the air, a radio will be blasting out tunes whilst local students play basketball in the park courts. It's colourful, lively, human.
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When we think of street art in Birmingham most people think of Digbeth and the walls and railway arches surrounding the creative hub at the Custard Factory.
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Since the old Bird's Custard factory was redeveloped as a media and creative centre of excellence in the early 1990s, the whole of Digbeth has undergone an artistic and suburban renaissance, so much so that the street art now defines the identity of the place, intrinsic to what makes Digbeth tick.
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Artist: N4T4
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The railway arches, factory walls, entire streets and the canals that snake through the area have become a grafitti paradise where street art, in all it's forms, is not just tolerated but positively encouraged.
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Artist: Goldenboy
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Street Art highlights areas like Digbeth, Shoreditch in London and Bedminster in Bristol, giving them a contemporary artistic vibe that attracts tourism and is in tune with the creative types now living and working in the area.
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Artist: Annatomix
Following on from the example of Bristol's Urban Paint festival, Digbeth has cottoned on to the trend for Street art tourism, firstly by staging the City of Colours fest in 2014 and most recently with the highly successful HighVisFest, which is returning later this year.
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Artist: PhilthBlake
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Artist: Justin Sola
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Artist: Andrew 'Title' Mills
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Street Art embraces and subverts all forms of cultural and social discourse, everything is fair game to be depicted, reimagined and used to frame a point of view or simply be a beautiful creation.
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Street art can be spray painted, poster paste-ups, tiny stickers on lamposts, even lighting and video installations. In Birmingham we are blessed with a wealth of street artists who live or visit the city regularly, such as Lucy McClauchlan, Annatomix, PhilthBlake, Dan Newso, Justin Sola, Andrew 'Title' Mills and the inimitable Fokawolf.
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Artist: Lucy McClauchlan
As a photographer and a student of Art I find grafitti, in all it's forms, compulsive viewing and exciting. Grafitti can literally be anywhere, so it's constantly surprising where it can be seen, on lamposts, trees, bus stops and the dark dirty corners amongst the ruin and detritis of humanity.
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For myself I like to ground my photos of street art in the wider environment, usually by depicting people around it or interacting with it, so in that way it responds to the life around it.
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Street Artist: Justin Sola
I really enjoy walking around Birmingham, capturing the ordinary and everyday scenes that make our city so special. I think street art really adds spice and colour to our urban landscapes, often rendering contrast against the grey ugliness of destitution, dereliction and neglect. I think street art is the most singular artistic movement of the modern era, it's the art of the common people, it can be done by anybody and not just by the monied educated few. I object very strongly to the appropriation of street art by the corporate and business quarters looking to buy their way into hearts and minds, but sadly money always talks.
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Bordesley Junction.
I hope you've enjoyed my little odyssey through the street art of Birmingham. For me it's a joy to witness these works and incorporate them into my work.
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The best way to experience it is in the flesh, so get out there and see it for yourselves. You'll be blown away by the skill and imagination of these people.
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Thanks for reading and if you'd like to see more of my photography you can find me on Instagram and Twitter as @jayjayjjetplane
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