Graffiti - Art or Vandalism?

I feel graffiti is a good and bad thing. Graffiti makes things look good when it looks bland and boring. This can either make things look better or make things on that building look worse. If people don’t have permission to do Graffiti on a building they can be fined. If people tag the place that they are painting, people will inevitably get angry and I can see why people get irritated with it being on there building. It then takes money for the owners to remove it, money that wouldn’t need to be spent if someone didn’t destroy it with something that doesn’t look that great. People have reasons to hate Graffiti artists. In Leeds (which is a place in england) they have had to spend $250,000 - $500,000 on removing pieces of graffiti from the walls of buildings in the area. All added up that is a lot of money being spent on pieces of graffiti. That is a lot of money being spent on something that could be stopped. One example to prevent graffiti you could put motion sensor lights outside to scare the artists away. 

High quality art pieces are sometimes in the form of graffiti. They can either be really good or really bad. One of the most famous graffiti artists in the world is Banksy, his works of art are very political and show how he feels about the world at the moment. He has painted pictures about war and how technology is taking over the world. He feels that things need to change and this is how he expresses his feelings and emotions. Here in Greymouth we have an artist of our own. His graffiti name is Raja (I’m not going to mention his real name) and he does really cool art around the town. He has done murals, painted chromebooks for kids, and small pieces of art also. He does this to make Greymouth look better than it does. About two years ago he painted a massive crane on a building near the Grey river. Some people from the public think that it doesn’t look good, whereas others think that it looks really good. He has also done other things like a train near the hospital, some kiwifruit on one of those electrical boxes, and even some art for one of the local schools. 

The feeling about graffiti around the world is 50/50. I can understand both the sides of the debate, people don’t want their shops vandalised by pictures that don’t necessarily improve the business nor the look of the building. Whereas other people in the public think that graffiti is a good thing because it makes things look good and helps people to express their emotions. I feel that graffiti is neither art or vandalism because they are both at the same time. Most serious graffiti artists, who do major murals and paintings (like Raja), ask permission before doing there art. This ups the name for graffiti artists and helps them get a better following. In all honesty I feel that graffiti can be a good thing if you ask for permission and do it properly. When the people feel that it look how they want it, the artist gets payed and everyone is happy. My overall opinion is that graffiti can be a bad thing, but it can also convey a very powerful and political message.

We also made a presentation of some of New Zealand's graffiti artists, Here it is: