Street Art has been popularised
in the last 15 years or so with major players, in particular “Banksy”, gaining
status and recognition within the art world. Given my overriding interest in
wildlife, and birds in particular, I was intrigued to read a couple of articles
in the London press about some new works by a street artist, “ATM”, who paints
hyper-realistic pictures of birds in urban areas, where these species would
once have lived before we took over their habitat.
Reading an article in the “London
Metro” (16 December 2014) several of ATM’s comments struck a chord with me. He
was brought up in the countryside, surrounded by the birds that he now depicts.
When he went to art college “there was a greater emphasis on conceptual ideas
and forging an original style, so making paintings of birds did not really fit
in” (substituting “photographs” for “paintings, I know exactly what he means!).
He now lives in London and his bright street paintings both liven up monotonous
housing estates and act as a reminder of what we have lost throughout so much
of the country, due to the way that we manage our land.
On Christmas Eve 2014 I visited
the South Acton housing estate in West London, which is currently being
re-developed and where much of his street art resides. With a little bit of
searching I was able to find five of his works: a grey partridge (Image 1), a snipe (Image 2), a barn owl, a jay and a goldfinch.
Image 1
Image 2
Whilst the artwork itself provides a
very straight, detailed and accurate description of the birds themselves, the
locations and the difficulties of transcribing the works onto surfaces having
differing textures and shapes provide, for me at least, conceptual art. The
paintings have received a very positive response from locals and, as ATM points
out, “their appeal goes across age and social barriers”. I have tried to illustrate
the street art (Images 1 and 2) within its environment, just as I would if
photographing the birds themselves.
The goldfinch (Image 3) and the Jay were painted in a
school playground, which I was lucky enough to be able to access when I
visited. Here, ATM deliberately painted birds which still occur within the area
and I was delighted to hear the twittering of goldfinches in a tree that was
adjacent to the goldfinch painting. Hopefully the art will encourage the next
generation to look after the wildlife that we still have in our urban
environment, as well as to take action to prevent the complete disappearance of
species, such as the grey partridge and snipe, from our countryside.
Image 3
I am looking at ways to
incorporate the concepts behind this street art into my own work, be it for my
current major project or beyond.
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