The Contemporary Street Artist

This figure is Michelangelo’s sculpture of ‘David‘, but as a contemporary street artist. The David is holding a spray paint can in his hand in place of the sling shot used to slay Goliath, rather this David slays the walls. In the other hand is the roller with a bucket of paste at his feet. The metaphor being expressed refers to the Renaissance as unquestionably a monumental turning point in the history of art. The tower portion of the bridge is symbolic of a classical fluted pillar and the eternal blue flame also paradoxically represents water as one of the two elements of life. The second element, oxygen, is depicted in the flame, which leads to the paralleling of fire and water, life and death.

Contemporary street art is also a rebirth or revival art movement. Just as impressionism gave new meaning to art but was rebuked by the ‘art society,’ streetartism has become the most sought after works of art by the public and collectors alike and has flooded the commercial market from prints to coffee cups. Street art and graffiti are the impressionism of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.