His father's album collection, comic books, and skateboarding all influenced REVOK to become the graffiti artist he is today. However, REVOK is not his real name. He was born as Jason Williams in 1977 in Riverside, California. He began his career as a graffiti artist on the streets and over time became a prominent figure within the LA graffiti urban scene. But over time his passion got him into trouble as he graffitied in places that were not allowed. After getting into trouble with the law on multiple occasions he made a move to Detroit where he could graffiti freely. In Detroit, he started the project Detroit Beatification with other artist. Their goal was to bring back vibrancy within the community with their art. After that REVOK moved back to LA where he held his solo exhibition in 2015. There he introduced a new side of him.
REVOK's art in general can be described as having a contrasting tone and vivid colors. From the get-go. His earlier art, as seen in the slides above in numbers 2 and 3, have bright primary colors that contrast with each other, different patterns, and fonts. It is evident, that comic books were a huge inspiration as seen in may of his graffiti art. There isn't much rhythm or rhyme to his work but it flows together, it looks like controlled chaos. The scale varies from large to small depending on the canvas he was working with. All of his earlier art is asymmetrical with saturated colors that make his art pop and pulls a persons attention. There is no one focal point but rather the whole piece is the focal point because his graffiti is all connected. His street work and his gallery work is vastly different in style. His more recent work that is in galleries is more geometric and symmetric. As seen in the slideshow above in 4 to 6. His art is still vibrant and contrasting but this time geometric with shapes like circles, triangles, and squares. It also would have thick and thin lines cutting through his art making it symmetrical. Although his art has changed over time, which is just a reflection of himself as he has changed as well, both his earlier and recent artwork are incredible complex pieces that are brilliantly colorful and vibrant. Most of his graffiti was done in communities and neighborhoods that were run down and lacked in beauty. REVOK art was meant to beautify. He had no intentions of being malicious, writing hatred messages or "tagging." He wanted to simply bring vibrancy back into communities. He was trying to change the notion of graffiti, the notion that graffiti is not art, not beautiful, and is simply vulgar. REVOK was trying to help communities by making them better through his art and not bring them down. He held good intentions when graffiting. In that sense he was an activist for graffiti art. Growing up, the graffiti art around me were done by gangs. They were tagging buildings, trains, and mostly fences, especially my fence. (Example in picture below) Then we would paint over it to cover it up but of course they would return and tag it again. Thus I never had an appreciation for graffiti. I thought of it as a crime and a disturbance. It wasn't art where I was from, it was a crime done by gang members. I never considered graffiti, art until I came to LA and saw real graffiti. The color, vibrancy, the words, the designs, were all amazing. Graffiti was much more amazing than what I was familiar with. Graffiti is beautiful and it makes things around it look beautiful as well. That is why REVOK's graffiti just deepened my appreciation for this art form because he was not malicious with his graffiti, but instead he was beautifying the areas around him by taking objects from broken neighborhoods and turning it into something more. Although I grew up with graffiti around me, it was never art and if that is all someone knows then they will never considered it art either. But if more artist like REVOK took the time to travel to various places and recycle materials of communities and turn it into art. Then more people would have a better understanding of what graffiti is. Graffiti is about turning streets into a canvas, turning them into art itself. |
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