a motion for commotion

In my most recent painting project our assignment was to pick an artist to emulate. Studying cubism in art history, I fell in love with the cubist tools to depict and condense space. I particularly found an interest in Marcel Duchamps' futurist cubism study of motion, as seeing in Nude Descending a Staircase. Cubism is as if an object is static and you were to move around it where as in Futurism, the viewer remains static as the object moves.
I've also taken an interest in Graffiti and have attempted to combine Japanese Graffiti with Cubism. Cubism introduced entwining words into compositions, an example being the infamous "Jou" seeing repeated throughout cubism. I chose Japanese Graffiti because I am quite fond of the foreign colour influence as well as culture, the act of writing graffiti is reminiscent of the spontaneous "NOW" of Japanese calligraphy. Graffiti has so much motion and flow through the letter's natural characteristics in the writing as well as in the actual process of reading the graffiti. I chose to depict a train because of the associations throughout graffiti and art history. Trains also contain much movement and cube forms. One of the futurist's concentration was embracing the machine of mankind, which is often symbolized by a train. The word and title of this piece is Locomotion.


Taking an academic approach to Graffiti has proven to be beneficial to my education. I had never been any good at drawing letters and learning to write will compliment my pictures greatly. Being able to form and manipulate letters will enable me to make poster art as well. Going to Yo Dawg for my free lunch of the day I suggested to Diane, the owner of Yo Dawg, that I could make her a new coffee sign as the one currently up isn't very aesthetically pleasing to my eyes. She replied no that's fine you'll have to sit down and wait for your food. I replied No it's really no problem, I've been studying graffiti and would enjoy making you a new poster. In response she said "Don't worry about it, sit down and enjoy your lunch" I said "Sure, I'll sit down with some markers" Diane snapped back "Sit down, eat your lunch and get out of here" After I ate my lunch and studied the graffiti walls, I walked up to the other manager and told him I'd make him a better coffee sign if Diane allowed it. Mark, another manager, replied "What? you don't like my sign? My wife made that sign... And you know what, she's going to finish painting the bathrooms to." Not wanting to see my work complimented by such distaste, and wanting that wallspace I took down a poster from my Dormitory stating "hot dogs: $1 Brats: $2" and wrote "Competition" in graffiti on the back. This is to open there eyes to the competitive business of selling hotdogs and advertise my own Graffiti abilities.