Underground Art

Many artist convey a message through their artwork, whether it’s political or personal they always make the viewer think “what” and “why” the artist made that particular artwork. After visiting the art gallery in the Visual and Arts building I noticed that each artist has their own style of artwork which makes it easier to tell the difference of what artist did what. Some of my favorites came from each artist, such as Distort’s The Beheading of the King, Mustart’s Skeptic Moment and Clarence Rich’s Man Behind the Mask.  

These pieces convey a political message of current events as well as social issues that occurs within today’s society. In Distort’s art piece The Beheading of the King, he uses graffiti combined with classical art usually seen in renaissance work. This form a style gives a dark flow that intimidates those who see it. Using the hood of cars as his canvas Distort engraves the hood with human figures that are depicted as two women beheading a man. The scenery shows a car engulfed in flames and behind it are buildings next to a large collapsed pillar where the street is deserted and leads way into a palace like entry. Distort artwork shows much similarity to Caravaggio's style of art and displays a creative way of accrediting his work. Given that the art work was done recently, it's most likely illustrating the most recent events in our society. It's resembling much of our political issues happening in the United states and its lack of leadership from our current president. Causing a collapse in our government and the people who are oppose to the new ideas from the president. 

The Beheading of the King 

Another artist that I liked was Mustart's Skeptic moment, the artwork has a graffiti style with some glued-on articles, advertisements, and newspapers. Some of these illustrate issues and global advertisement, some don’t demonstrate any sort of activism which leaves the viewer to think what the artwork can be about. The most amazing part about it is the bee seen floating of the left side of the board. Mustart uses his art work to express his emotions and ideas whether it's political, personal or what he sees in his community. Much of his artwork are inspired by what he sees in his surroundings, in an interview posted on a blog site called Chicpea JC, he states, "I remember, I started drawing landscapes, oceanscapes, underwater scenes. Just stuff kids would paint! things that are nice to look at. Then as I got older, and started dealing with social issues, personal problems…when you grow up you start realizing certain issues about the world… and I realized through art I can say how I feel about certain things; my political stance…. tell people about my sexuality, everything that I am or how I feel through art. It became more provocative, loud, kind of in your face and now it's going through another phase. I want to just be at peace (ChicpeaJC)

Even though the message might not be clear to see through his artwork, the elaborate details of colors and drawings connecting to words leave a more creative view of the artwork. 

Clarence Rich is a street artist mainly known in the North Jersey area, especially in Jersey City. One of his artworks that I liked most was the Man Behind the Mask. It shows a body that hangs from a large box that seems to represent a helmet or a mask for the face. On the front of the box it shows a monster like face but when opening the box, you can see an animal like creature that resembles much of a cat. This may be related to today's society of how people are publicly seen one way through media but are completely different. Showing two different faces in front of people, it may pose a positive or negative effect on the person. 

        These distorted figures provide an uncomfortable site to those who are not use to these forms of figures, but it's put together in a way that creates an illusion inside the box. Most of his art work shows monster like figures morphed into animals. Clarence Rich describes his use of these figures and how one of his favorite teachers, Brian Townsend, told him an inspiring statement which he said "What makes a human, is their eyes". He states this because he was able to see Clarence artwork in a way where he does not see the work as a monstrous being but as something done with passion (ChicpeaJC)

Each artist has a particular style that tells them apart from each other and sometimes have a similar message to convey through their artwork. These artists also share a relationship outside of their artwork. These artists have a common social status within the art community, but what makes them inspiring is that they can relate to the people in their community and are able to translate their experience and emotions through their art works. One quote that I believed related to these artist is from Seeing Power, 

"This tension over cultural actions infects not only the work and lives of cultural workers, but also how their work and lives are understood by others" (Thompson, 91)