Street Painting as Public Art

I recently came across several blog articles focused on the use of street painting as a public art form – New Age Professionals, 3D / anamorphic work as related to fine art traditions, and Killing Denouement, which focuses on the hypothesis that street art steps into the realm of public art due to it’s inherent nature.  Perhaps the global rise in the use of street painting as a marketing tool, from promoting products to event launches for advertising purposes, has provided increased leverage in the translation of the art form into the public art arena.

We’ve seen street painting festivals throughout the world as venues for artists to show off their talents and concepts, yet through guerrilla marketing and subvertising, we are seeing a new global art movement taking shape – artists not relegating their work to only galleries and museums, but making artistic choices for themselves by going directly to the public as a means of communication and expression. From familiar artists like Banksy to unknowns,  like the author of this Rangoli painting I came across at the Gateway of Bombay, a memorial piece for victims of the Mumbai bombing attacks, artists are increasingly using their immediate environment, whether the web or a city street, as a canvas for messages imbued with culture, politics and beautification as a response to the world around them.

To see a variety of street art forms take a look at WebUrbanist’s Alternative Urban Art Guide, which focuses on alternative art forms currently being practiced around the world.