But graffiti artists are also starting to apply their talents to private spaces, and in some cases the spray-happy hoodies of today will be tomorrow’s interiors gurus.
Graffiti has begun to come off the street and into our homes. It’s even been touted as the next big thing in interiors. Often described as “art crime”, its street origins and anti-establishment image make it intrinsically cool for young people. But it can also be beautiful.
Top-quality street graffiti is rare in Ireland, but a visit to the inner cities of places such as London, New York and Rio de Janeiro reveals random styles, brilliant colours and bold graphics. It has the beauty of urban decay combined with an edgy sense of talent from the gutter.
Although most effective in large urban warehouse spaces, graffiti art can also look striking in classically proportioned houses or modern apartments.
In a forthcoming project with Scudding Clouds for a restaurant in Baggot Street, the graffiti artist James Earley will take a leaf design, originating in Georgian cornicing, and blow it up 2,000% to create an impressive Georgian-meets-street-art effect.
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When decorating her period Dublin 3 cottage, Laura Williams, a music promoter, hired the graffiti artist Daniel Page to do two of the rooms. In one of the bedrooms he painted a huge maze on a wall, and in the hallway, a series of nine square abstracts on a wine coloured background, all done with spray cans.
“In the five years I’ve lived there, I’ve redecorated several times,” says Williams. “But those two rooms are so beautiful they have never been touched.”
Unlike say, a painting, graffiti doesn’t have to be in the middle of a wall. It can go around corners and into corridors, cover awkward spots or entire rooms. It works on floors, doors, kitchen units and furniture.
The rock star Lenny Kravitz recently commissioned new dining-room chairs for his Miami home, but when he saw them he decided to hire a graffiti artist to spray-paint over them.
Graffiti is largely created using spray paints, but marker pens can also play a part. And despite its illicit origins, artists are snooty about technique.
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“A lot of artists look down on people who don’t use spray cans,” says Earley. “Spray paint isn’t a crude medium any more. You can get a variety of nozzles that give you different widths of line to achieve quite sophisticated effects.” All of these techniques are very difficult to master, requiring talent and practice.
For Earley, an interest in typography led to a fascination with the shapes and styles that he can make with letters. For example, he uses huge words that are dramatically cropped. “You just see part of the letters — you can’t actually read the words, so it’s all about form. The meaning isn’t important.” He also finds that images and words work well together indoors.
Interior graffiti hasn’t really taken off here, so finding an artist can be tricky as most still work illegally on the streets and remain anonymous. But Earley is ahead of the game.
If he ever used public spaces to create illegal art, those days are well behind him.
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“I’m more interested in getting a well-finished result than a half-finished illegal job,” he says. “It’s a matter of getting clients that see the art form’s potential.”
In London on the other hand, graffiti is in demand. The Godrich Design Collective, which manages designers and artists, has just signed Daisuke Sakaguchi, a graffiti artist.
Graffiti in your home is something that you have to consider carefully, even though you can always paint over it.
If in doubt, you can always cheat. On one occasion Sakaguchi worked onto a mounted wall of MDF. Another way of making it more digestible is to stick to a neutral palette. The designer Kelly Hoppen has commissioned a graffiti piece in ecru and white.
Although Sakaguchi hasn’t yet undertaken any commissions in Ireland, he’s open to invitations. His prices begin at £200 (€290) per square metre. “The least expensive piece that we’ve done to date was £950; the most expensive was £2,500,” says Godrich. “We don’t want to over-commercialise it. It’s an underground art form after all.”
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Goodrich Design Collective, www.godrichdc.com; James Earley, 086 844 6444