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The public has had a love/hate relationship with graffiti. On the plus side, graffiti artists like Banksy have made walls a place to put a political point across, using stencils to produce technically tricky artworks with a subtle meaning attached. This type of graffiti was bound to get popular with both the masses and the artworld : pleasing to the eye, and the intellect. This kind of graffiti is even acquired as printed canvas art, and placed on the walls of suburban homes and corporate reception areas.

Yet, what of the common or garden kind - the gangbanger, the tagger, the street urchin - this is just seen as hooliganism, an offence perpetrated by the untalented. But this is to misinterpret graffiti as purely an art form. To many individuals, it’s not only an artform, but a method to put your stamp on a district, or even a rejection of society altogether : anti-social, anti-art, anti-establishment.

Spraying has invariably been a covert activity, although the effects are public facing. The targeted audience is often unidentified. Is it for a rival crew? A communication to a single person? To the public? Or….possibly it’s just gratuitous and out of nothing else to do.

Whatever the reasons may be, there appears to be some kind of permanent need to spray graffiti on walls. Some towns have acknowledged that graffiti isn’t going to go away, so they’ve designated zones where graffiti is permitted - usually unoccupied areas, but from time to time busier zones like boarding that surrounds inner city construction sites.