Wk3 - Artist essay - revok
About the Artist
Jason Williams, better known as Revok, was born in 1977 in Riverside, California and is one of the world's graffiti writers. His early exposure to art through skateboarding and his father's collection of vinyl and comic books allowed him to become the artist he is today. Revok creates old school graffiti style writing, while keeping the roots of graffiti and adding newer expressive styles to it.
Formal Analysis
Revok's graffiti has an American style of jumbled letters, it is also called wild style. Revok uses bold colors in his graffiti works and colors with very strong contrast in his works. He marks his name "REVOK" in his works and they are usually done on walls and take up the whole space. The letters have a very futuristic look to it with many sharp edges. Meanwhile, Revok's work in the gallery are rather small-scale. These works on the other hand contain many colors and are very geometric or symmetric.
Content Analysis
Revok's art is not like other graffiti work where artists "tag" or write hatred messages. Through Revok's art, there is a beautiful message that Revok simply wants to beautify the community. It is easy to say that the vivid colors of his art brings life to a community because not all graffiti art has to bring hatred.
Synthesis/My Experience
While looking at some of Revok's artworks, I get a feeling that I am brought into space with his patterns of geometric shapes as well as his use of vibrant colors. His wall art has a mechanical/robotic feel to it that is very futuristic and it is like his art brings me to the future. Revok's art is so beautiful that I would feel very happy whenever I look at his art if it was done in my community.
Wk3 - activity - graffiti art
For this week's activity, I got to do some graffiti art that I've never gotten to experience before. It was easy picking two colors, I immediately went to my favorite colors, pink and blue. I decided to outline the letters of my name in blue because I want the whole artwork to be mostly in pink, because it is summer.
To start, I sprayed my name in block letters without any gap using the pink spray paint. Then, I outlined the letters using the baby blue spray paint. The picture taken was a second attempt, since my first attempt failed. The first time, I sprayed the whole board in pink, thinking that I would just draw the outline of the letters since I saw a picture of a student doing it with five different colors. However, it didn't work too well for me since I only use one color as the background, so I decided to give it a second try.
As for this activity to be applied into something else, I think it would be cool if I could actually do it on a legal graffiti wall, where I could be able to draw other things than just my name. If a lot of people, for example our art class, could gather together to a wall and do all of our names and do other drawings, I think the wall would look awesome!
If I could do this activity again, I would probably outline the letters in pencil first, as instructed on the website. I thought it would be okay not to outline the letters, turned out it could look way better if I could do it again. I think it is also pretty difficult to handle the spray paint because it is one of the reasons why the outline of my letters looks pretty uneven.
To start, I sprayed my name in block letters without any gap using the pink spray paint. Then, I outlined the letters using the baby blue spray paint. The picture taken was a second attempt, since my first attempt failed. The first time, I sprayed the whole board in pink, thinking that I would just draw the outline of the letters since I saw a picture of a student doing it with five different colors. However, it didn't work too well for me since I only use one color as the background, so I decided to give it a second try.
As for this activity to be applied into something else, I think it would be cool if I could actually do it on a legal graffiti wall, where I could be able to draw other things than just my name. If a lot of people, for example our art class, could gather together to a wall and do all of our names and do other drawings, I think the wall would look awesome!
If I could do this activity again, I would probably outline the letters in pencil first, as instructed on the website. I thought it would be okay not to outline the letters, turned out it could look way better if I could do it again. I think it is also pretty difficult to handle the spray paint because it is one of the reasons why the outline of my letters looks pretty uneven.
Wk3 - extra credit
For this "Love Beach" project, we had to print a picture of ourselves and write our name across the picture, then stick it in the sand at the beach, or anywhere that has sand. I did mine at the "Muscle Beach" at Venice Beach. I actually went to Venice Beach on Saturday with my family, but we went at a different time so I couldn't meet up with the class.
At first, I didn't understand the meaning of this project, but after spending some time to think about it, I think it's very meaningful. In my perspective, I think that by writing "I Love You" on our pictures, it is similar to reminding us to love ourselves. We should always be proud of ourselves and should always get goals and do everything to achieve these goals. It is to remind us that we are beautiful in our own way, and no one can bring us down. This project gives a beautiful image of us in public, for everyone to see that we should love ourselves because loving ourselves comes first before we can love anybody else beside our family.
At first, I didn't understand the meaning of this project, but after spending some time to think about it, I think it's very meaningful. In my perspective, I think that by writing "I Love You" on our pictures, it is similar to reminding us to love ourselves. We should always be proud of ourselves and should always get goals and do everything to achieve these goals. It is to remind us that we are beautiful in our own way, and no one can bring us down. This project gives a beautiful image of us in public, for everyone to see that we should love ourselves because loving ourselves comes first before we can love anybody else beside our family.