I’m not quite sure what to call the Shenzhen habit of painting over the graffiti—but just the graffiti—that some other soul has surreptitiously painted on a wall, or street, or stand, or the ridges of a corrugated steel barrier… They do not re-paint, or re-tile, or re-lay the sidewalk. They paint over a private eye’s telephone number or hastily scribbled contact of an independent furniture mover, and then over-paint again, and again, sometimes so efficiently that the black paint of the graffiti mixes in with the white over-paint, grey.
Yet this over-painting is often unexpectedly painterly. The thick textures that develop under multiple brushes and various paints could hang beside a Pollack or Rothko and not seem out of place. A question of framing, and re-framing, of course. Or more accurately, a question of learning to see otherwise. To see other than the grit of desperate advertising or the sloppy ineffectiveness of anti-graffiti measures; to observe, instead, the organic composition of common spaces.
To see some examples of over-painting, please visit: http://pics.livejournal.com/maryannodonnell/gallery/0000bcxp
Shenzhen Noted 