Miss Bugs and the rise of ‘Urban Art’

graffiti

ɡrəˈfiːti/

noun

noun: graffito; plural noun: graffiti

1.    
writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place."the station was covered in graffiti"

street art


visual art created in public locations, usually unsanctioned artwork executed outside of the context of traditional art venues. The term gained popularity during the graffiti art boom of the early 1980s and continues to be applied to subsequent incarnations.

These specific definitions relate to art unconstrained by form, media and message. This style of art offers creative freedom and each ‘Urban Artist’ can ‘exhibit’ their work through a variety of mediums.

Miss Bugs creations can be defined as both Graffiti and Street art, with finished work not only being placed in the form of street installations, but also ‘borrowing’ imagery from popular culture for vibrant silkscreen images which are reproduced for private, gallery and online collectors.

It is the work of Miss Bugs in particular that has inspired my current silkscreen and digital prints and my Practice in a Professional Context modular report reflects this influence.  

Using sections of my flamboyant flower patterns and curved black figurative keylines overlaid with layers of print styles, I am experimenting with decorative designs and figurative patterns on a variety of tensile fabric samples and dense paper. 

At this stage I am unsure which surface will be successful for garment construction (as this is one direction I may follow) or which patterns work best and so my continued exploration has led to the silkscreen and digital prints completed so far.

SILKSCREEN MONOPRINTS

'Pictorial surfaces can never appear empty or lifeless to anyone who takes notice of their surroundings" 

Marlene Dumas - (in search of) The Perfect Lover.

25^th February 2016

 

The eclectic range of artists who are inspiring me; from Matisse and his linear figurative work and simplistic cutouts to Marlene Dumas’ bleeding watercolour canvasses, reflect my attempts to express myself through colour.

Experimenting with Silkscreen mono printing was one way of combining the vibrancy of colour with the curved linearity of the human form. It is using this process that I tried to emulate the immediacy of line and brightness or spontaneity of tone.

I began working directly onto mesh of silkscreen with acrylic paint.I wanted to experiment with the media and produce artwork which was less controlled than traditional silkscreen printing and more experimental in its execution.  

My life drawings and organic projections were, once more, the subject of this trial and I placed a selection of thickly drawing linear bodies under the mesh of my screen to trace with a brush as a key line.

One has to work like Speedy Gonzalez in order for the paint not to dry in so the work I ended up with was rather clumsy and not particularly satisfying.

Retarder can be added to reduce the drying time of acrylic, but makes for an uneven and blotchy surface print. The screen is masked off leaving the area one wishes to print within exposed. Acrylic paints are mixed first (using 50% transparent medium and 50% pure colour).

The end results whilst vibrant were disappointing. I disliked the ‘inaccuracy’ and lack of control, preferring to work into these test pieces and using them as backgrounds for future figurative work or perhaps they could take on the form of an abstract book.