André the Giant Has A Posse.

In 1989, I started noticing strange black and white stickers randomly decorating the urban landscape of Providence, Rhode Island. They were attached to street signs, light posts and trash cans and featured a graphic headshot of wrestler Andre the Giant that to me looked like a mug shot, accompanied by the phrase:  'Andre the Giant has a Posse.' 

No one in Providence seemed to know what it meant. And without any explanation, these stickers continued to pop up for years and became an almost accepted part of the environment. At the time, I suspected they were somehow associated with art students attending the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). I, too, was an art student nurturing an obsession with photography, albeit at the much less prestigious Rhode Island College (RIC), yet, the creative energy felt very familiar.

Much later, I would come to understand, along with the rest of the world, the creator of the Andre the Giant sticker campaign was Shepard Fairey, a RISD alum. The seeds of his once underground student work, that accidentally trended on the streets of Providence, has since propelled him solidly into the mainstream, especially after he created the iconic 2008 Barack Obama 'Hope' campaign poster. Fairey's path, and that of street art, have transformed since 1989, morphing from graffiti, legally described as a form of vandalism, to well-respected commissioned public art.

During this time my perspective on graffiti has also changed. The truth is I had a real disdain for graffiti as a young art student. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated the capabilities of really talented graffiti artists, like those displaying their talents on the sides of NYC subway cars. As an artist, I recognized the amazing skill required to create these works, including touch and detail. The best taggers were not only able to radically transform spaces using pedestrian cans of spray-paint, but they also worked quickly and cleanly, stealth enough to avoid being caught by the police. Subway taggers were the exception to the rule for me. In general, I didn't like to see public places 'defaced' by graffiti. A part of me was afraid of what graffiti represented:  A lack of control, unpredictability and a disregard for the beauty of public spaces.Graffiti was a crime.

Although graffiti has been around since ancient times, in the last 50 years or so, it, and its artists, has become a strong cultural, socio-economic and political issue. The media portrayed 1970's era graffiti artists as Black and brown juvenile delinquents who were rebellious, poor, angry and had no respect for the law. That's not to say there wasn't an element of truth in this characterization, but that powerful social stigma had lasting consequences. These assumptions seemed to diminish the artistic value of those artists who started on the street, like Shepard Fairey and others, even as they grew into well-compensated mainstream artists in the present day on the global stage.

My first ever trip to NYC with college classmates in the 80's fed into this stereotype. As I rode the subway to Coney Island, I remember the uneasiness and vague fear I had as I looked around the inside of the subway car, covered in graffiti from floor to ceiling. The bold, screaming, often illegible text, along with the unpredictable knocking and screeching noises originating from the train itself as it rolled down the tracks, were unnerving. To be honest, I wasn't emotionally ready for it. The graffiti, and city, was too much for me at that moment. Too urban, too raw and too unfamiliar. It would take another 20 plus years for me to evolve emotionally to really appreciate it.

In 2012, I found myself employed at my alma mater RIC as a training specialist. A full-time career as a fine art photographer had eluded me, but my love for photography, especially street photography remained. As a way to satisfy my creativity, and street photography itch, I would leave campus at lunchtime and drive a few minutes to Federal Hill in Providence. Once a stronghold for the Mob, the historically Italian neighborhood featured great architecture, restaurants, bakeries, storefronts and of course interesting people, ripe for street photography.

One day I was on 'The Hill' at a time when the streets were unusually quiet. As I walked aimlessly up and down the main thoroughfare, Atwells Avenue, a world-weary pay phone caught my attention. By this time, pay phones were already becoming relics of the past. And truthfully, it wasn't the phone itself that caught my attention as much as the interesting collection of stickers, some fresh, some so worn I couldn't make out what was on them in the first place, attached to the space surrounding it. The blue sky reflecting off the polished metal added to a collage of colors, stickers and marker scrawls, keeping me transfixed. I spent a long time studying the pay phone, probably confusing and amusing passersby who wondered if the big Black dude snapping away, with his face and camera just inches away from the worn out station, was okay.

From that day on I was hooked, dubbing my project Urban Abstracts, partially because of the sometimes abstract quality my images take on. This journey, over a decade in the making, has spanned from Portland, Maine to Miami, Florida. At first, I lumped traditional graffiti, the spray-painted, written and scratched words on hard surfaces in one category with stickers and posters. I've since learned that stickers, or adhesive art, and wheat-pasted posters are a subcategory of graffiti. As my project has evolved, my eye is increasingly drawn to creating images featuring a combination of stickers and traditional graffiti. I enjoyed bringing order to the scene by using a combination of shapes, lines, texture, color and text to corral the chaos into a compelling composition. That's where the magic seemed to happen.

There are several reasons why I have been committed to this project for so long. Graffiti is about grabbing interest. On the street, there's an insane amount of competition for attention, so graffiti artists fight hard for our eyes, utilizing tried and true themes, like depictions of sex, violence, humor, political messaging and pop-cultural commentary to express themselves. Ever ingenious and forward thinking, current artists have begun incorporating QR codes into their designs enticing viewers to learn more about them and their agendas with a click of a smartphone.

Through my Urban Abstracts, I've been inspired to revisit Salvador Dali, the legendary surrealist painter, whose paintings force you to slow down and look deeply, yet never see the same thing twice. If you study Dali's paintings, you will discover how his chosen elements appear or recede depending on your frame of mind. It's like contemplating a more interesting Rorschach test. My hope is viewers will create their own stories as they view each of my images. With Urban Abstracts I have tried to bring to life the strange juxtapositions randomly occurring in the street setting. Perhaps my biggest joy comes from permanently capturing the temporary nature of these scenes. The imagery is constantly evolving, changing, shifting and often completely disappearing as the effects of time, weather, pollution and diverse nature of the materials succumb to the environment.

In 2019, my wife and I relocated to Miami, FL. for the amazing weather, music and art scene. Coincidentally, Miami also happens to be the home of the Miami Street Photography Festival, running every December in conjunction with Art Basel. My new hometown is a celebration of incredible art culture, much of it showcased in the Wynwood neighborhood. Once an industrial collection of warehouses, the neighborhood has been transformed into a showcase of colorful commissioned murals and spectacular large-scale works by the world's best street artists, including Wynwood Walls and the Museum of Graffiti, where people actually pay admission to celebrate and showcase street/graffiti artists.

In recent years, galleries, boutiques, restaurants, bars, night-clubs and residential buildings have turned Wynwood into one of the hippest neighborhoods in Miami, tipping on the verge of gentrification. It has become an incredible hub for tourists to the city, both domestic and international. This celebration of street art is in stark contrast to how graffiti was viewed in early 80's NYC or my hometown of Providence in the late 80's for that matter. Although graffiti is still seen as vandalism in most circles, in Wynwood there appears to be a blurring of the lines or crossover between graffiti and its celebrated cousin, large-scale commissioned street art. My Urban Abstracts continue here, evolving, as an art form. I feel fortunate to live a 20 minute drive away from the bountiful, never-ending cycle of graffiti and street art.