Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego - Downtown

For the museum trip, I decided to go to The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in downtown. The exhibit displayed the pieces of some well known "street artists" such as Banksy, Shepard Fairey, and Vhils.

The art piece that I found especially interesting was Scratching the Surface (2010) by Portuguese artist, Alexandre Farto aka Vhils.

Vhils is relatively a young artist. He gained prominence when his work of a face carved into a wall appeared alongside a picture by street artist Banksy at the Cans Festival in London in 2008. A photograph of him creating the work appeared on the front page of The Times. He was later given space to show his work by Banksy's agent, Steve Lazarides. Several of his works were featured in Outsiders, a collection of street art published by Century, 2008.

Scratching the Surface is a stenciled relief that is sculpted into a brick wall with plaster and white paint. This is a fine example of the type of work that Vhils is known for, stencil graffiti.

Stencil graffiti makes use of a paper, cardboard, or other media to create an image or text that is easily reproducible. The desired design is cut out of the selected medium and then the image is transferred to a surface through the use of spray paint or roll-on paint. The process of stenciling involves applying paint across a stencil to form an image on a surface below. Sometimes multiple layers of stencils are used on the same image to add colors or create the illusion of depth.

Vhils takes this art style to another level by taking the stencil and carving it directly into the surface of the wall. This makes the process take a little longer but adds a whole new aesthetics to graffiti art.

I chose this piece because of the craftsmanship of the actual piece. It astonishes me how much detail that Vhils can create just my varying the different thicknesses of the plaster. Ultimately Vhils creates the shadows and highlights of the face through a minimum of three visible layers: the white paint, the gray plaster, and the red brick.

I applaud Vhils and all of the other artists of this exhibit.