Writing Project #2

Art has been a part of every society since the beginning of time. Pictures were found carved into walls of caves by primitive beings, some cultures such as Egypt used art as their form of communication, and countries like Italy express their art in every angle that you look. But the topic of art is a very vague idea. Who is to be the one to determine what art is and what it isn’t? Typically thought of, art is when an artist sits down with their blank canvas and adds to it. He continually adds and adds layers of paint to the picture until the masterpiece is complete. But is art only addition? What if art was created by the idea of subtraction instead?

The piece of artwork pictured above, “All we are is dust in the wind…,” shows the artist Alex Orion working away at his creation in a subway tunnel in Sao Palo, Brazil. To create this masterpiece, Orion has taken water, sponges, a variety of scraping tools, and GreenWorks, an organic cleaner to clean his creation out many layers of the dirt and suit that have covered the walls. The black walls that surround him are covered in years of grime that no one has bothered to clean off, until now. But Orion is only one of many who follow this tradition of the Reverse Graffiti Project, which is believed to be originated by Paul “Moose” Curtis. Curtis started this project in San Francisco after he had spent many years working in very dirty restaurant cleaning pots and pans. One day he leaned over to clean a dirt spot in the wall and after he wiped it up he realized that the clean spot he had left was much more noticeable than the dirt to begin with. His statement for why he works so hard to create these clean creations is that he wants people to realize the matter at hand. When trying to explain his occupation he struggles. “I’ve never found that easy way to explain what I do. I tell a person that I make pictures by cleaning…the whole core of what I do is based around drawing in pollution and writing in nature.” ("The Reverse Graffiti Project") Many of his creations depict settings of the ancient types of trees that used to be planted there before these tunnels were created. His idea is trying to remove the dirt to reveal the past.

Alex Orion, on the other hand, took a much more morbid approach to the mission. Instead of creating images of life that used to inhabit the area where the tunnels are, he has created a mural of what will be there in the future if people don’t learn to respect the earth or each other. His title for the creation represents the irony of the ideas that when our bodies decay, we return to the dust state, but dust is also represented to be dirt which is the original problem. By naming this piece, “All we are is dust in the wind…” Orion is sort of stating that we are the only ones to blame for our own future. This photograph instantly calls to the reader’s pathos from the simple image of a skull. People relate skulls to death and that is a topic that most people tend to be sensitive with. The skulls seem to bring a shocking factor to the problem of pollution. The audience’s pathos were also considered because of the large amount of dirt. Most people tend to care enough about the world to realize that that’s pretty bad and guilt is one of the strongest pathos that hit humans. On the other side, a person’s pathos are called to because many people appreciate the art of taking something ugly and turning it into something beautiful. The process of erasing and cleaning symbolizes a new life and a second chance. In turn, this creates a contradiction. The skulls bring up the idea of death and the ultimate end but the cleaning reminds the audience of rebirth, hope, and that there’s still time to change.

The ethos of the picture are very well put together. Each of the skulls display a very bright white that creates a contrast from the black suit. This drastic contrast is very esthetically pleasing to the eye and makes the skulls really stand out. Each of the other murals that were created from the grime look like a great amount of time was taken to be sure that the images appeared as clean as possible. In fact, many people walking past the murals have said that they don’t realize that these images are wiped away until they get up close and personal with the shapes. This technique creates an optical illusion that offers the idea that the white images were added on top of the black, not the black being pulled away to reveal the white.

Finally, this portrait calls to the audience’s logos because it offers straight facts that make them realize what this world has come to. These tunnels are obvious pieces of evidence of how horridly our planet is polluted. There is no better proof than standing in front of these murals and realizing how white these walls used to be. The cleansing process shows people the steps to fix the problem at hand. Many people have called this work urban graffiti but it offers a totally different element. Graffiti has always been considered as “markings, as initials, slogans, or drawings, written, spray-painted, or sketched on a sidewalk, wall of a building or public areas.” Graffiti has also been coined as a derogatory statement of a group of people defacing public property. But are these grime artists really hurting any property? If an image is viewed as offensive, could it not just be washed off? Maybe this is what it will take for the city to learn to clean itself. If someone put up an image that people found offensive, the city would send a crew over to erase it and ultimately clean the tunnel and solve the initial problem of the pollution.

The Reverse Graffiti Project helps create a variety of visual rhetoric that helps open the eyes of the public to the problems that are all around them. These images also help motivate the people to make a change and realize that life is more enjoyable when one is surrounded by beauty instead of dirt. The cleaning of the tunnels help people learn to take pride in the cities where they live because it’s part of their home too. As the creator, Curtis, states in defense of the environment, “Nature’s voice, if you like, is written in dirt as if it were written in blood.” ("The Reverse Graffiti Project")



Works Cited:

Lithgow, Michael. "Reverse graffiti turns city grime into art." Art Threat. 17 Nov. 2008. http://artthreat.net/

"The Reverse Graffiti Project." The Reverse Graffiti Project. 2008. Oil Factory Inc. Production Company. 19 Nov. 2008. http://www.reversegraffitiproject.com/

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