By Luke Anderson
"Graffiti is art without permission anyway and I have permission"
There is often times that I find myself walking through the streets of Leeds, whether this be to and from university of just in my travels in general around the city. Although an already renowned city of creatives (could you tell from our name?), Leeds has become home to a new interesting development. This development is electric box artwork.
It is in my ventures around the city that I recently became aware of these somewhat extraordinary electric boxes.
These colourful boxes highlight the various streets within Leeds, there are seemingly plenty of them. The culprits behind this stylistic movement are not afraid to reveal their identities either, with the main artists tagging their Instagram handles and such on their work: namely the Burley Banksy and ma.holo. These artists unashamedly declare their work and wear it as a pinnacle. Although undeniably creative and ultimately aesthetical, can their work be deemed ethical or approved by the community?
The approval of the community is something that must not be disregarded. A group within Leeds have claimed accountability for defacing the work of Burley Banksy, claiming that they do not want it within their community. On one side, one could consider this to be an upholding of societal values, however this can easily be discounted as the group decided to tactically deface the piece of work with paint.
What do the vast majority of the public think about graffiti? This graph taken from an article on YouGov shows that perhaps mentalities on graffiti isn’t as rigid as one would assume. From these statistics we can see that the majority of people are not against graffiti, as long as it is within artistic and reasonable means. Surely electric boxes can be considered as being within reasonable means. But is there a difference between graffiti and art?
Andy McVeigh attests to this, the man behind the Burley Banksy: “It's not graffiti... I'd like to think mine is art... People hate tagging, they all seem to like mine. Graffiti is art without permission anyway and I have permission.” Speaking to Andy, he told us of how he first began with his art in Leeds and what his main inspiration is: “I started by painting over horrible tagging in our area with trees, landscapes etc. Then I had idea to do LUFC ones when I was going to the match a while back, create a sort of pathway to the ground.”
This shows that Andy reflects similar attitude to the group opposing his work, he does not believe in senseless defacing. “Still gutted when my non LUFC ones in Headingley and Burley get ruined by taggers. They are so disrespectful and tag not just my art but people's houses, doors, windows etc. It degenerates the area and leads to more crime. They think they are "gangstas" but probably still live with their mums!”
It is quite evident that Andy, too, opposes the tasteless tagging that defaces many of the walls and buildings around Leeds. This is something surely everyone can get behind.
Regardless of the attitudes of some, Andy’s work is continuing to expand beyond the electric boxes of Leeds, “Now selling canvases of my work, setting it up as a business soon. Been on Match of the Day even!”
One could decide from this that it is unfair for a group of people to deface a piece of work that, not only being made with good and artistic intentions, but has the backing of the general community. What right do the minority to inflict vandalism on something that benefits the community in a good way?
One must consider the odd attachments that some people seem to hold for their precious little green electric boxes. If anything, the pieces simply display the true, artistic nature of the city of Leeds, a city that has time and time again demonstrated its creativity. These pieces are not a detraction from the utopia some parties wish to upstand, they are created in ways that bolster the attractiveness of the scenery.
To summarise, next time you find yourself walking through Leeds or the surrounding areas and happen to come across a piece of electric box artwork, do take a minute to consider what your thoughts and values are on this. As a city driven by creativity, it could be said to be within our best interests that we uphold the creative nature that supports the artistic expansion within Leeds. Tagging is a problem that is faced not just by the general public but also the artists trying to get their work developed and recognised, hopefully this is an issue that we as a creative city can come together to overcome.
Comentários