Style branch · 1970s → today

Street Art & Graffiti

Art that takes up space

Street art put art on walls, trains, alleyways, billboards — outside the gallery, in the city, for everyone. It started as graffiti tags in 1970s New York and grew into a global voice. It speaks to power. It speaks for neighborhoods.

What this style actually is

Graffiti started in the South Bronx and Philadelphia in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Tags ('TAKI 183') escalated to throw-ups, then to pieces (whole-car train graffiti), then to community murals. By the 1980s, the artists who started on subway trains were showing in galleries. Basquiat. Haring. Lady Pink. Lee Quiñones.

Street art (a broader term) includes stencils (Banksy), wheat-paste posters (Shepard Fairey, Swoon), murals (Diego Rivera's whole tradition), and contemporary work that doesn’t always know if it’s graffiti or fine art. The distinction has blurred.

The technical skills are real. Spray-paint control. Letter design. Composition at architectural scale. Speed under pressure. Many graffiti artists are among the most technically skilled painters working today — they just don’t always do it on canvas.

Who shaped it

The artists who built this style.

Famous masters and the lesser-known voices who pushed the work forward.

Keith Haring

1958-1990 · American

Drew his radiant figures on NYC subway walls in chalk. Brought the same energy to galleries. Crack is Wack mural (still in Harlem). Died of AIDS at 31. The Foundation he started keeps his legacy active and funds AIDS work and youth art programs.

Known for: Radiant Baby · Crack is Wack · We the Youth (Philadelphia)

Jean-Michel Basquiat

1960-1988 · American

Started tagging as SAMO in NYC. Moved to canvas. Painted in crowns, words, anatomy diagrams. Painted in dialogue with art history while also smashing it. Died at 27.

Known for: Untitled (Skull) · Hollywood Africans · Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump

Lady Pink

1964- · Ecuadorian-American

First woman in NYC subway graffiti. Painted trains in the 1970s when nobody else thought a girl could. Still painting murals at gallery scale today. Pioneer.

Known for: Subway pieces (NYC, late 1970s) · Female Identity in Hip Hop (mural series)

Banksy

Active since 1990s · British (anonymous)

Stenciled satire across Britain and the world. Famously shredded one of his own paintings at auction. Identity unconfirmed despite endless speculation. The work is about anti-establishment politics; the anonymity is the point.

Known for: Girl with Balloon · Flower Thrower · There Is Always Hope

Diego Rivera

1886-1957 · Mexican

Mexican muralist. Painted the walls of schools, government buildings, factories with images of working people and indigenous Mexican history. Married Frida Kahlo. The grandfather of public political art in the Americas.

Known for: Man, Controller of the Universe (Mexico City) · Detroit Industry Murals · Pan American Unity

Hebru Brantley

1981- · American

Chicago-based. Created the 'Flyboy' character that became a recurring street and gallery icon. Brings pop, street, and Afro-futurist sensibility into one practice. Has worked with everyone from JAY-Z to Nike.

Known for: Flyboy series · We Are Wakanda (mural)

How to see it

Three things to notice in any work of this style.

🎨

Color that survives outdoors

Walls get rained on, sun-bleached, painted over. Street artists use saturated colors with black outlines because subtle palettes literally disappear in outdoor light.

🏛️

Architecture as canvas

Good street art uses the wall it's on. A doorway becomes a character's mouth. A pipe becomes a body part. The piece couldn't exist on a different surface.

💬

Voice

Street art is almost always about SOMETHING. Politics, neighborhood pride, mourning, satire, celebration. The medium is loud because the message is.

How to practice it

Beginner to expert, in three tiers.

Pick the tier that fits where you are. Move up when the current tier feels too easy.

Beginner

Start with paper.

  • Tag design bookSketchbook page after sketchbook page of your own name in different letter styles. This is what every graffiti artist starts with. Letter design IS graffiti at its core.
  • Stencil practice (cardstock + spray paint)Cut a simple shape stencil from cardstock. Spray paint over it onto paper (outside, with parent permission). The discipline is making clean edges. Banksy started here.
  • Sticker artFree postal labels + sharpies = a street artist's starter kit. Design 20 stickers. Put them on legal surfaces (with permission — the parent rule).

Intermediate

Scale up — legally.

  • Apply for a community mural projectMany cities have programs that let young artists paint legal walls. Apply. The wall and the supplies are usually free. The experience is irreplaceable.
  • Posca pens on found materialsOld wood, cardboard, vinyl records, skateboard decks. Posca pens are weather-resistant and work on any surface. Builds the muscle memory of working at scale without committing to a wall.
  • Wheat-paste at homePrint/draw at full size. Mix flour + water. Paste onto an approved wall (your bedroom, garage, school art club space). Learning the technique at home prepares you to do it well in public when you have permission.

Advanced

Community-scale work.

  • Full mural at permission scale10x20 foot wall, with permission, with a 3-day timeline. Plan everything in advance. Manage paint, weather, your own pacing. This is the real test.
  • Series across multiple sites5-10 pieces in the same style at different locations (with permission). The connection between them becomes a piece itself.
  • Document EVERYTHINGStreet art is impermanent. Pieces get painted over. The documentation is the lasting work. Build a portfolio of every legal mural you make.

Tools sized to this style

What this style asks for.

🖍️

Posca paint pens

Opaque, weather-resistant, work on any surface. The street artist's pocket tool.

📓

Black sketchbook (the 'Black Book')

Where graffiti artists develop their letter styles. Mead Composition, Pentalic Aqua Journal, Stillman & Birn.

🎨

Spray paint (PARENT-supervised)

Montana 94, Belton Molotow, Krylon. Different caps for different line weights. Outdoors. Permission surfaces ONLY. With a respirator if you're doing serious volume.

✂️

Cardstock stencils

Reusable. Reproducible. Bridge between drawing and spraying. Buy a cheap craft knife.

📷

A phone camera

Street art lives or dies on documentation. Photograph everything you make.

🤝

A community

Find local muralists, graffiti writers, art collectives. Apprentice. Help on someone else's mural. This is the lane where mentorship matters most.

Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.— Banksy