// August 3rd, 2010 // View Comments // b-street
A head on hippy crash between guerilla gardening and graffiti is germinating. Yesterday’s graffiti artists purveyed permanent ink & paint and now inventive tagging alternatives such as liquefied mud, moss, recycled fur and plain old pressure washers are being deployed. Anarchistic, artistic, political and egotistical messages are now delivered with no threat of handcuffs or pricey fines.
Jesse Graves
We use it in the form of a facial mask to draw out impurities from the skin, so it makes perfect sense that watered-down dirt is the ideal foil for artist Jesse Graves’ environmental messages. A coincidence? I think not. However, in true Crowdsourcing fashion, the artist happily dispenses helpful ‘how to’ instructions on his website, which will hopefully get people riled up enough to lobby on behalf of Mother Nature this weekend!
Neozoon
The international artistic collaborative known as Neozoon (a term that references the existence of non-indigenous species) offers interesting food for thought by placing random animal figures throughout the streets of Paris and Berlin wearing assorted recycled fur coats rescued from local thrift stores. The diverse group of artists — who prefer to preserve their anonymity with masks during all public appearances – have proven that their ongoing project is more than just a quirky little pastime. They strategically select the location of all future animal figure installations based on what has happened throughout history, as was the case when they placed recycled fur covered sheep right outside of a former slaughterhouse.
Anna Garforth
London-based illustrator and graphic designer Anna Garforth propelled herself from paper to three dimensional eco-sculpture by partnering with Elly Stevens in a series of artistic projects that employ sustainable materials, including tree bark, ferns, grass and, most famously, moss. Their collaboration, known as MOSSenger, has yielded beautiful living typography on the front of walls.
Paul Curtis (aka ‘Moose’)
Ask anyone the question: “Who started reverse graffiti?” – the term used to identify any city image that is created on walls, streets, sidewalks or objects by removing dirt with fingers, power washers and copious amounts of detergent — and British artist Paul Curtis will be given all the credit. For 10 years, the Soundclash record label head, disc jockey, eco-marketing guru and self-confessed ‘Professor of Dirt’ has devoted his spare time to the fine art of defacing public surfaces with cleansing messages, all of which have culminated in commercial contracts with high profile brands. One of his biggest coups was being commissioned by Green Works cleaning products to create an impressive eco-inspired mural in San Francisco’s Broadway tunnel (documented in the video above).
CURB
Inspired by the eco-graffiti trend that has swept the globe, the marketing organization CURB earns their bread and butter by pimping out Momma Nature on behalf of some of the most notable consumer brands and organizations using nothing more than creativity and artfully arranged snow, sand, grass, dirt, water, and even glow in the dark bacteria. CURB dabbles in so many intriguing biodegradable and zero-impact mediums that it’s hard not to give them credit.
The Dutch Ink Clan
Working as a reverse graffiti team along the lines of master artist Paul Curtis, several Durban, South Africa schoolmates – including Martin Pace, Stathi Kongianos, JP Jordaan and Nick Ferreira – launched their artistic project by hand scrubbing a visual timeline of their town’s architecture into a pollution covered 17 meter tall concrete freeway wall in Essex Terrace using nothing more than a hardware store-purchased metal brush. With accolades and widespread public appreciation, they moved on to bigger and better projects reflecting more organic scenes such as a school of sardines swimming across a city bridge as well as a stylistic forest that resembles that of a solar print.
Graffiti Research Lab
Formed 5 years ago, the Graffiti Research Lab — the brainchild of robotics engineer James Powderly and Parsons School of Design valedictorian Evan Roth – offers a veritable open source toolbox for eco-sensitive activists and graffiti artists to take advantage of. Unlike employing typical earth-bound media such as mud, moss and grass, the duo help the public to communicate their messages thanks to the glorious trinity of computers, video cameras and lights which work in tandem to project images on whatever formerly unreachable surfaces might tickle one’s fancy. The result is visually arresting, particularly when New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge or Italy’s Roman Coliseum are used as canvases, enabling those who have a thing or two on their minds to say it in grand style without damaging a single blade of grass…or their law-abiding reputation.
Edina Tokodi (aka ‘Mosstika’)
Easily able to pull her weight with the best of ‘em, Hungarian-born Edina Tokodi – whose stomping grounds are now in the heart of Brooklyn, New York – is a green graffiti artiste extraordinaire who focuses specifically on bringing “nature closer to city dwellers” through the installation of socially relevant images that trigger environmental appreciation.
Alexandre Orion
Skulls don’t seem like particularly green subject matter to focus on, but when they’re etched into the inner tunnel of a highly trafficked area via the grand reverse graffiti tradition, they instantly trigger an ‘ah-ha’ moment. They no longer represent trendy, cliché imagery — instead, they serve as a blatant reminder that the toxic pollution released from the hundreds of thousands of vehicles that commute back and forth on a daily basis have left a tangible mark…not just on our physical structures, but also in the air we breathe and in the environment that is supposed to sustain us. Brazilian graffiti artist Alexandre Orion – who in 2007 transformed Sao Paolo’s Max Feffer Tunnel into an outstandingly impactful verdict on our passive pollution oblivion – fortunately had his project filmed before the city washed away all traces of its existence.
Vichen
Vinchen has earned a reputation on par with Banksy as one to be admired, revered and even emulated…and as his website appropriately asks, “What have you done to change the world lately?” One look at his collection of visually arresting images and you’re immediately struck with the sense that the Ohio artist really means business. His varied and judiciously delivered messages comment on everything from bureaucratic nonsense and chronic hyper-consumerism to social classes and the state of the environment. Of his most clever imagery, Vinchen’s simply named “Ivy” – located on Columbus, Ohio’s High Street – uses a crowning glory of plant life as the perfect accent to a grinning face peering from beneath. On the flip side, his depiction of two innocent Bambi-like fawns nonchalantly nibbling on a radioactive flower cause one to exhale a heavy sigh, knowing full well that there’s more truth in it than we’d like to admit.
via WebEcoist
Swoon has captured our imagination with her decaying street art. She’s not a graffiti artist, rather she prints her works on paper before hand-painting them and pasting them onto walls. The pieces decay after a while, becoming ragged and faded. Eventually they disappear completely. Right now, her installation ‘Murmuration’ is on display at Black Rat Projects in Shoreditch. We’d encourage you to go.
performance art by sailing down the Mississippi and up the Venetian Grand Canal in ragtag collections of handmade boats.
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One of art’s most divisive genres, graffiti is a controversial topic. The question remains: Graffiti, art or vandalism?
Art has always been seen as having 
