graffiti - is it a form of art?

i was walking alongside the canal behind chestnut avenue when i saw some graffiti on the walls of the canal. they look like the work of some youths who had too much time on their hands. this reminds me of the graffiti that i came across when i travelled by train in melbourne.

my initial impression of graffiti was that it was some scribblings by gang members who were out to mark their territory or some rebellious youths' way of self-expression. i think graffiti started as a form of vandalism - unsolicited marking of a private or public property. in fact, they first started appearing on the trains in new york city.


a piece of graffiti art from melbourne

however, after viewing some of the pieces in melbourne, my perception of it has changed. i would say that graffiti has evolved into a form of art. i am not referring to the graffiti that you find in some of our public and coffee shop toilets. those telephone numbers and crude and suggestive drawings cannot qualify as art.

the complexity and size of some of the graffiti on the walls of buildings near the railway stations suggest that these pieces were not the work of one individual but more like the combined effort of a group of graffiti artists.

there appears to be a standard way in which the graffiti artists form the letters, though sometimes reading the calligraphy may need a bit of deciphering. the mutlicolour works which they produce exhibit creativity and vibrancy and have an aesthetic appeal of their own.