Undulating Freedom

I´ve been thinking a lot about street art and graffiti lately. About how it breaks the bounds of conventional visual art. Street art boasts a freedom that is quite different from classical art, yet it still serves to show me the "catharsis of artistic expression." I mean, I´ve always thought about it, but it seems lately that instead of peering in at it through the dirty window, I´m touching it, rolling it around in my fingers, removing its grimy exterior to reveal its lustrous surface. [it = street art]

From traversing the smog-laden streets of Lima, Peru, I´ve discovered just how much of art is freedom. It´s a cleansing release once creativity flows from pencil to surface, from brush to canvas, as medium and substrate become one. One unique entity, erupted from the artists womb, evolves into a living thing that grows and changes with time. As I speak, the present becomes the past, time constantly moves, and history is changing at an unstoppable pace. As we learn more, and grow as people, the meaning of the art changes with us. The art is freed, to grow as it will, and the artist is set free.

I abhor the ignorant opinions of fools who contend that art is meaningless, a waste of time, or simply for the simple-minded.
Some of the work I´ve seen here in Peru was purely done for aesthetic enjoyment, while other images were birthed to voice the artist´s opinion. In the neighborhood of Magdalena del Mar in Lima I came across a stencil of the thin-lipped and mustachioed Adolf Hitler saying, "Adolf Hitler Tenía Razón," which translates to: "Adolf Hitler was right." Now I disagree wholly with this statement. It infuriates me to ponder the hatred in Hitler´s soul that fueled his crazed ideologies, or to consider the atrocities he caused against Semitic peoples. But the image of this stencil has been chiseled into my mind´s eye to remind me that art is powerful, art speaks, and is ultimately tantamount to freedom.

I´ve recently discovered woostercollective.com, a website dedicated solely to celebrating street art around the world. I´ve gained a certain power from visiting the website; its amazing to see the elaborate ways in which people have expressed themselves worldwide. Seeing other people´s art makes me itch to break out my acrylic, spray paint and brushes right away. I suppose I should use a canvas as well... but part of me yearns to leave my legacy on the greasy brick walls of Barranco, where the neighborhood´s rich history will meld with my outsider´s perspective to create something special, galvanizing both art and artist into the reciprocal process of undulating freedom.