2003-2008

In urban areas, graffiti is often painted over by municipal authorities, often as obvious quadrants in neutral colours.

When viewed partially or out of context, these ‘paintovers’ resemble abstract-modernist or colour-field works. In this series, I photographed segments of facades in Asian, European and American urban centres, on which graffiti has been covered. Possessing a distinctively painterly aspect, the images were then printed on canvas and stretched over frames. This process documents an transformation of an urban art form into unintentional ‘art’: it begins as a reactionary act, yet results in a painterly deception.
(Theo Ligthart)

Theo Ligthart: Past and Future @ Transmediale in Berlin and Flatfile in Chicago