Graffiti artist breaks down misunderstood art form


By WENDY GROSSMAN
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

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Off the Wall: Graffiti, Art or Not?
What: How does graffiti affect a community? Is there a difference between graffiti and vandalism? The panel discussing these questions and more will include choreographer Donald Byrd; Michelle Barnes, executive director of the Community Artists' Collective; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston curator Valerie Cassel Oliver; and a local graffiti artist.
The discussion is presented in conjuction with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, exhibit Hello Oiticica: The Body of Color.

When: 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 11.

Where: Brown Auditorium, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet.

Cost: Free.

Bonus: The discussion is followed by a reception. Attendees are invited to samba in one of Oiticica's painted capes.

Phillip Perez, a 27-year-old better known as "Article," is one of several Houston graffiti artists recruited to perform live, onstage, during the Spectrum Dance Theater performances presented by the Society for the Performing Arts.

Graffiti art, Perez maintains, is more than names scrawled on underpasses. With permission, he has spray painted murals on buildings throughout the Houston area, creating everything from Dizzy Gillespie, Jimmy Hendricks and Madonna on a sound studio to a 60-foot downtown skyline on a pool hall.

In his teens, he illegally defaced buildings with graffiti lettering. Now he volunteers with the mayor's office and HPD antigang task force, teaching kids not to spray paint illegally.

Q: What do you do when you're not doing graffiti?

A: I'm always just doing artwork — murals, portraits, canvas painting, pretty much everything in the art world except tattooing. I don't do tattooing.

Q: What's with your alias?

A: I go by Article. When I came up with that name in the early '90s, I felt I'm just a small part, I'm just a little bitty piece, an article of hip-hop in the art world. Just a real small piece — a small article of the bigger scheme.

Q: Why do you need an alias?

A: It just stands out a little bit more. If I tell somebody, "Hi, my name is Phillip Perez, and I'm an artist," I don't think it will have as much imprint as if I tell somebody, "My name is Article." They say, "Article? Is that your real name?" It's something people remember.

Q: How'd you get into graffiti?

A: I was at a friend's house. They were breakdancing, and in his kitchen he was showing this graffiti video. I stayed in the kitchen and watched it — it was a 1 1/2 -hour video. I was maybe 16 at the time, and I liked this style of artwork.

I thought, when I get home after this video, I'm gonna try to do some of the lettering and coloring like that. There's a place by my house that I was given permission to paint on that I could use for that. I went and got some spray paint and I tried it out.

I've been using aerosol as a medium for more than 15 years. I create realistic murals.

I use aerosol because it covers up a large square footage really quick — it's amazing. Plus it dries in about five minutes. As opposed to oil paint or acrylics, spray paint dries almost instantly, which is ideal for murals.

Graffiti art isn't taught in classrooms or colleges. It's something you have to develop out on the street all by yourself. There's no one to teach you the right or wrong way to hold a spray can or what type of spray tips to use.

Q: What about graffiti makes it art? Do you think graffiti is art?

A: You have graffiti writing, which is the illegal act, usually an application of lettering to a surface. Graffiti writing is only based on lettering, when people write their names, like "John was here."

But then there's graffiti art, which is done legally, with permission. When somebody goes to Texas Art Supply and paints a mural on the side of the building using aerosol, that's great art. There's a big difference between the two.

We actually did a mural back in 2002 on Texas Art Supply. The owners supplied us with paint, and we did a mural on the side of the building that ran for two years — until a graffiti writer defaced our artwork. He went out in the middle of the night and wrote his name across our painting.

It was difficult for us to deal with.

Q: You said that at one time you were a graffiti writer?

A: In the early '90s, we used to do graffiti writing around the city. Now, at an older age, we realize we didn't really do anything but destroy stuff. We need to take what we've learned — the problems that we had doing graffiti writing. We need to take it and do something positive with it.

We do outreach in the community, through the schools, and educate the kids on the consequences and what could happen to you if you get caught doing graffiti writing. We never got caught doing it, thank God.

Q: That was my next question.

A: I think it was God's way of saying, "Hey, I gave you guys a chance to develop this art form, and this style, and this technique using aerosol, but give something back. I kept you safe on the streets all those years. Now use what you learned."