Art can feel like a secret language. For a long time, the idea that you needed special knowledge to decode it kept many people away. I think that’s why Streetart became so massive: simple people started doing simple things, anyone could relate to. Then it grew, big projects involved bigger teams and regulations, and suddenly, new judgement appeared.
Today, there are entire studies dedicated to defining what “street art” even means. Yet art itself still resists strict definitions. If history reached the point where anything inside a museum could be considered art, the implications of replacing museums with streets, are huge. To add complexity, street art includes everything from small, fleeting tags to monumental works on skyscrapers. And -as distant to art as it is- law seems to play a curious role in it.
I don’t think big murals betray anonymous spontaneous pieces, they have a complete different process and reaches different audiences. Big buildings are seen by people who don’t usually pay attention at all, while smaller pieces might be hidden and only spotted by the trained eye. Legal works can get funding and press coverage. Illegal ones live in secrecy. A single person can practise both, is not like we sign an agreement or get a degree to become street artists.
But on the way from one to another, there’s a big fuss about “keeping it real”. I think a small intervention can be wild and carefree. Yet a big building which will disrupt everyone’s daily life, comes with a different responsibility. Imagine yourself standing in a busy street, and you feel like whispering a sudden thought: no big deal. Now what if I give you a megaphone and blasting speakers, would you easily improvise what you’re about to say?
I come from graphic design, where communication is everything. Street art pushes this to the extreme because the audience is the entire street. Everyone is included, even people from cultures I barely know. My approach is to stay simple. That sounds easy, but it takes constant work. It means clearing the noise in my head, being honest about my emotions, paying attention to strangers and theirs, sharing something real, and then observing the reaction.Being an artist in the street is the ideal playground to investigate this.