Ansikte

How wonderful is this one! My big sister found it on Skånegatan in Stockholm.

Side of a van

Found in Banyuls sur Mer, France

Very, VERY, bright green spot

More lamp posts

Smält

I caught one of my elusive artists at work today:

Grey finds on a grey day. And my favorite painting got tagged!

Recent reflection photos sent from Amelia (not here) reminded me of my subway photos from a couple years ago. Diffuse, obscure, enigmatic? Or maybe just indecisive and ambiguous... In any case, I had three of these printed out big on canvas (VERY expensive) and am experimentally painting on them - trying to add some solidity to rest the eyes on. So far it's going badly and I'm making some expensive screw-ups.

Got this one from my girl Amelia too (Sanguinetti A!). I love that it's a plywood print in concrete. The organic wood print on the "leaves" is wonderful.

Sunny side, shadow side

Thank you Laurie and Amelia for sending me this one (and MN pretty much counts as a Swedish suburb)!

This one I collected in Göteborg, near my sister's house.

This line has been on the wall under the train station at Täby Centrum for over a month now. I can't imagine how it was made, but I hope it stays for a while longer as I admire it so much when I walk by. Better than any line I've made on purpose (http://www.emmaeyre.com/)

Horizontal lamp posts

Horizontal lamp posts

Göteborg profile with tophat

I wonder why graffiti is for the most part so boring. Tags are scribbled quickly, partly because writers don't want to be caught, and partly to achieve that effortless grace. I get that (I think most of us try for the same quick elegance with our signatures), but why is so much of it in the same style? Even the big, colorful, labored pieces are too similar in style. Why aren't there street artists who try for some other approach with paint (I have seen a few fresher things, but few and far between)? There must be many ways to apply spray paint. What about realistic, or expressionistic graffiti paintings? Are graffiti artists so true to the form and tradition that they prefer not to break with the accepted styles? Seems strange that folks who enjoy the thrill of illicit 3 a.m. painting would be so bound by custom.

A couple years ago, I did a small graffiti project based on the comment I heard from so many people: "I like graffiti, as long as it looks nice." I hung up some "nice," framed watercolor paintings around town, and glued a couple of nice oil paintings up in the subway (they were paintings of people riding on the subway). There were 11 paintings in all, and I'm not sure what became of them...