Stencil graffiti, made famous by Banksy over the last few years, has actually been a form of street art for 25 years. You can employ cardboard, paper or other types of surfaces (such as plastics) to develop templated graphics and text. You simply cut around the design from your paper/cardboard/other surface, place said surface onto a wall (example), then spray or roll-on paint.

The definitive rule of stencilling is producing outlines via cutting shapes, and spraying paint within these cutout shapes – creating clear-cut images on the surface underneath. It’s also possible to employ multiple layers of stencils to produce an illusion of depth or even add colours.

There are innumerable reasons for being a stencil graffiti artist. For a few, it is an easy method to communicate a political point. Other stencil artists value the PR that their artwork can obtain. Some simply wish their art to be viewed. As the stencil stays unchanged during its use, it is far easier for a stencil artist to speedily duplicate what could be a complicated artwork at a very speedy pace, when equated to other traditional tagging methods, so without doubt, there is also a strong promotional reason to get involved with stencilling.

Banksy has applied stencilling as a means to put a point across, often quite succinctly, providing the spectator to work out that very point in their head. This is oftentimes why people love his work so much, as they force the viewer to reflect on the meaning behind the artwork. The graffiti artwork of Banksy is being reproduced on t-shirts, canvas and posters, such is the popularity of Banksy.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 8:16 am and is filed under Artium. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.