12/25/2010

What do two artists who are living in another country do on Christmas day? Go adventuring with our cameras, that what! We made it out before it began to snow and toured the fairly deserted streets. We crossed over the Vtlava river and over towards the Egon Schiele Art Centrum near their artist residency studios. What we found in that area was really quite cool. Small bits of paper art and stencil art could be found nestled within crevices and nooks all around us. It was like we stumbled into a secret art bubble. When we have walked around in other parts of the city we’ve noticed repetitious images here and there, small schools of paper fish made from grocery store advertisements, spray painted and stuck on images of eyes and birds. In this one area, slightly off the beaten path, it seemed that everywhere we cared to spend time letting our eyes rest revealed some hidden art surprise. The rest of the time spent with the available light we had was spent documenting and recording footage of this find.
The element that I find really interesting is in the chance encounter with the unexpected. A situation that requires a certain level of curiosity and openness in order to recognize patterns and slowly begin to use them as bread crumb trails leading to the hidden treasure left by others. These treasures may simply be thought of as a temporal footprint, a sign of a social, cultural, or even an individual presence and passing. Street art in all of its subtle and overt variations manifest themselves over top the seemingly rigid and orderly façades of architectural landscapes. Each style representing an individual ethos or philosophy, interest or message, influence or medium. Layered upon one another either on purpose or by opportunity the canvas begins to resemble a soil layers filled with rich evidence of the past for some new visual archaeologist to gaze upon and react to. And in that same breathe, street art is as illusive and varied as to almost become background noise to the uninterested or unobservant. The knowledge, the language, the insights, colors, trends, fads, messages and deviations all cloaked in code as one must first encounter place, then orientation combined with interest reveals the world others wish you to notice.