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Urban abstract...

Paul Abbott

New member
untitled11of1600.jpg


paulyrichard Untitled '10
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Enjoyable and a treat! Could you also show us it's world and the people passing by if you happen to have some environmental cover of the area, just snapshots.

Asher
 

Paul Abbott

New member
Thanks Bart, thanks Asher.
Asher, this was a small steel plate on a brick wall looking painted and distressed, near a bus stop. The plate size was only 24"x18" approx., it wasn't a massive mural at all.

Hopefully more layers of paint or graffiti may have been added to it, or it may well have been cleaned, never to be seen again. Lovely! :)
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Terrific. It's perfect. It could certainly have been created by an artist's brush and auctioned at Sotheby's. I'm such a mug for found art like this. Excellent eye, Paul.
 

Paul Abbott

New member
Thanks very much.

The east end of London is full of graffiti and such, Banksy and ROA are quite prominent here. Things like this though are little gems and are quite rare, I wish I could find more.

Ken, I took it with a prime lens and the detail and texture in this is certainly making me consider printing it up big for the wall. The fine cracked paint in the red area is really nice.
 

Paul Abbott

New member
I can only imagine the colours, forms and textures that maybe found, Asher.

Sometimes walls are steam-cleaned unsuccessfully, but then another tardy layer of graffiti is overlaid and so the cleaning cycle begins again, and through time the previous layers show through. :)

I find that graffiti art evolves when another artist reacts with another's work on the wall, or not in some cases. Some artists paste on paper images in this way, and I find it amusing and these can make a good picture.
These images are not around for long though.

Here is one I took nearly two years ago:


dalidistaste600.jpg


Paul Abbott Untitled '08
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
That's # 2 of 12!

Doing good!


Asher
I can only imagine the colours, forms and textures that maybe found, Asher.

Sometimes walls are steam-cleaned unsuccessfully, but then another tardy layer of graffiti is overlaid and so the cleaning cycle begins again, and through time the previous layers show through. :)

I find that graffiti art evolves when another artist reacts with another's work on the wall, or not in some cases. Some artists paste on paper images in this way, and I find it amusing and these can make a good picture.
These images are not around for long though.

Here is one I took nearly two years ago:


dalidistaste600.jpg


Paul Abbott Untitled '08
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
This second image is amusing, but it crosses into the very different territory of representation of others' works. Unless you're nicely represented in strotospheric circles (i.e. Richard Prince) it's a personal memento.
 

Paul Abbott

New member
This second image is amusing, but it crosses into the very different territory of representation of others' works. Unless you're nicely represented in strotospheric circles (i.e. Richard Prince) it's a personal memento.

Yeah, I agree with you. This was only to give an example of what I was talking about above. :)
Graffiti like this is always ephemeral, get it while you can. Not even the wall is here anymore, its all been knocked down.

Who knows who did this? Who cares really. I can remember forming a title in my mind soon after I took this 'Dali's Distaste', but who knows he may have liked the drooling mouth!?
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Indeed, who knows?! But that's part of the fun of finding these little urban gems.

That 2nd image is very much like much of the collage work that was done during the inter-war Modernist period in Europe, especially in Czechoslovakia. This is a subject in which I've been involved during the past several months and I've found it fascinating. If you enjoy this image I think you'd find it interesting, too.
 

Paul Abbott

New member
Do you mean Dadaism or photomontage, Ken?
I have a small book by Dawn Ades about this, I bought back in 1989 when I was working in Whitechapel Art gallery in Whitechapel, east London.

I really love the war images of Hitler and such, they were ingeniously created. I would dearly love to create some of my own as a statement about my country and its government these days.
 

John Angulat

pro member
Hi Paul,
My humble apologies for not commenting sooner.
Bit hectic here and I'm trying to tie up loose ends before a well deserved vacation.
These are fantastic! I only wish I could find such gems here in New York.
Are you thinking of printing them? On canvas?
How large? (I think bigger is better!)
 

Paul Abbott

New member
John, thanks for the comment, and no worries.
Surely NY has it all John, but then again its a vast place and things are few and far between no?
I do want to print it, and print it big. I like Giclee prints but they cost a 'bomb' with setup costs, an' all that. There is also merit in printing it 20x20, I guess.

Hope you have a nice vacation. I am off to see my father on the east coast of Canada in a couple of months time, hopefully.
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Do you mean Dadaism or photomontage, Ken?

Both and either, Paul! Those anti-Nazi photo-montages were powerful visions in their time. Even beyond political statements, photo-montage became a wonderful medium for broader social commentary. I encounter some photo-montage work today, but it seems relegated to art students.
 

Paul Abbott

New member
Both and either, Paul! Those anti-Nazi photo-montages were powerful visions in their time. Even beyond political statements, photo-montage became a wonderful medium for broader social commentary. I encounter some photo-montage work today, but it seems relegated to art students.

Thanks, Will.

Ken, I absolutely love all the images by John Heartfield. I like too, 'Haywain with Cruise Missiles' and 'Defended to Death' to name a couple by Peter Kennard.
 
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