concentration statement

During the first semester of this year, I became infatuated with graffiti. But is wasn’t the large scale paintings that I fell in love with but the quick, stylish and dynamic marks of simple tags (artist signatures of sort written usually in permanent marker on anything from dumpsters to doorways). I worshipped the hours of practice and immense skill and style behind the split second marker slashes. I was also captivated by the character of each individual style, and began noticing the subtle differences in mark-making that separated one writer from another. All of these different styles, scrawled across the run-down walls of a living city tell me stories of decay, but also of renewal. It is as if the city’s exterior is peeling away to reveal the history beneath, told in the unique writing of its inhabitants. The basic premise for my concentration lies on the parallels between humans, our cities, and the ephemerality and history of both. By drawing a person as a conglomeration of graffiti, I hope to not only represent the person visually, but also to show the ever-changing history of that person. The evident chaotic process of the marks that make up the drawing parallels the underlying history that makes up every living person beneath their façade of appearance. To add another layer to this history of process, I have done the majority of my work on newspaper, or a newspaper text transfer onto paper. This background text creates another layer of text to parallel and contrast with the graffiti I write on top of it. I have explored this process by beginning with simple portraits in black marker and white-out on newspaper, and expanded to other media of acrylic paint with a limited color palate. From here I explored using finer lines to create more detail, a full color palate on a color-filled comic background, and even several full figure drawings. I have stretched myself by working in large sizes, learning to write graffiti, exploring the use of color in this style, and by attempting to convey motion through line in my break dancing full figure drawings.

Breakdancing

I did this drawing of Moses breakdancing.

Breakdancing

I did this drawing of my friend Moses Breakdancing.

More new older stuff

Did this before Big Color

Tyler

I did this a while ago but forgot to post it until now. Sorry guys I know that the numerous people following my blog have been itching for some new work. Well here it is, new old work

Big Time Color for a Big Time Playa

So basically I got this idea to draw on a funnies page, and my friend Trevor is hella funny so I drew a funny guy on a funny page with funny colors.

Another

Another

Poorly done and it looks nothing like the model. I feel like I am getting worse after my first few.

Self Portrait

Self portrait yo

Live model classes

For the past three weeks, I have gone to a live drawing group every tuesday. There is no instruction. These are a few of my better studies.

Tupac

After doing Biggie Smalls, I wanted to do a matching portrait of his rival, Tupac Shakur, in a similar style. I experimented with using more white out for the highlights and to create a gray value in combination with the black marks.

Biggie

This is a drawing I did about two months ago, just after my shoulder surgery. I was trying to re-learn my graffiti alphabet with my left hand. One night I decided to try a black and white shadow shape drawing of a face with graffiti being the dark shadow shape. After doing one pretty poor drawing with no form at all, I decided to attempt to convey form through overlaying writing in different thicknesses. Here's the result. (This is Christopher Wallace, popularly known as Biggie Smalls and the Notorious BIG. "If you dont know now you know")