Painted-Over Graffiti

History of the Collection
I am fascinated by the irregular forms and color fields created when people paint over graffiti.
Sometime around 1984, I joined the Graffiti Removal Committee of the Historic Ravenswood
Association. Also on the committee were Evan Sullivan, an artist / print-maker and Clarence
Liautaud, a retired commodities broker. Every Saturday morning, rain or shine, we painted over
graffiti on garage doors in our neighborhood of Victorian homes and old factories.

Each of us developed our own way of covering the graffiti. Evan neatly painted just enough to
cover the graffiti, trying to square-off the resulting forms. On the other hand, Clarence liked to
imitate the strokes of the original graffiti -- messy and expressionistic - a way of telling the
graffitiists that he had just covered up their menacing marks. I painted the entire door.

At about the same time I started selling factories on Ravenswood Ave. Each time a client asked
me to sell a property, I would take a few photos of the building. Needing them quickly, and not
wanting to waste the remaining frames on the film, I would take photos of the latest painted-over
graffiti on my way to the local drug store to drop off the film for processing.

The Irregular Form
During that time, I attended a variety of art history lectures at various Chicago art institutions including,
for example, the Franz Kline series at the MCA. I also decided to start an art collection focusing on
abstract works, especially color field works by emerging artists. Ever since my college years in the
late 1960s, I had especially liked the works of Mark Rothko and Helen Frankenthaler. I quickly noticed
the obvious connection between abstract expressionist work and the irregular forms and fields of color
created when people paint over graffiti.

I also noticed that there are some other strong irregular forms in more realistic paintings by a
wide variety of artists. I suspected that there was more psychological significance to irregular
forms than had been explained by art historians. For example, Claude Monet’s series of
paintings “...on the Seine” is filled with very strong irregular forms. Also, in Paul Gauguin’s
The Vision of the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling the Angel) the outline of the womens’ white bonnets
in the foreground makes a bold compositional statement, while Jacob and the Angel can
hardly be seen in the distance. Max Ernst’s character Loplop certainly evokes a similar
response to the irregular forms of painted-over graffiti. And even the humanoid forms of
Leon Golub are first cousins of the irregular forms of painted-over graffiti.

There is something intriguing about the act of painting over graffiti - one man’s attempt to
obliterate another man’s expression of identity and territoriality. There are a variety of forms
created which can be grouped as follows:
• The color fields of Mark Rothko, Morris Louis, and Mark Tobey.
• The irregular forms of Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Motherwell, and Jean Fautrier.
• The expressionistic works of Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky and Willem de Kooning.

This collection of images of painted-over graffiti also documents other prevalent aspects
of contemporary visual urban life - the colors of cheap hardware-store paint and a history of
the painted surfaces - garage doors, buildings, concrete viaducts, dumpsters, wood and
metal fences and brick walls. Over the same time, I have also photographed the “paint wall”
of a real estate client of mine - Ravenswood Studio, a manufacturer of theater sets and props.
Sets and props are spray-painted up against a wall. The resulting over-spray creates
what is known in the business as the paint wall.

In 1998, a tenant of mine was marveling at his new automatic laser steel-cutting machine. He
offered to fabricate an abstraction of one of my images, and I entered the result in the Midway
Airport Sculpture Contest. I thought it was a fitting symbol for airline passengers to view as
they descended into Midway Airport - a salute to painted-over graffiti, about the size of
a Chicago bungalow, and a billboard with a pair and eight of irregular forms.

Since retiring from the Graffiti Removal Committee, I have kept busy by practicing painting
over graffiti on canvas, fabric, acetate, tracing paper and, my favorite - corrugated
cardboard boxes, especially the ones in the shape of a cross. I am currently working on sculpture
for the Ravenswood Industrial Corridor, where this entire endeavor was born.

The Series
Over the last few years I have compiled small books of some of my favorite images of
painted-over graffiti including:
• The Clarence Liautaud / Greek Sculpture Series illustrates the strong relationship between
the expressionistic works of painted-over graffiti and Greek Sculpture.
•The Florence Zucker Fashionable Colors Series illustrates the vivid and tasteful colors favored by my
mother-in-law from St. Louis, who still can still create a colorful painting or a fashionable dinner outfit.
• The MCA Plaza Enhancement Project .

There seems to be endless possibilities for the forms created by painted-over graffiti. I envision
embellishing public buildings, such as Soldier Field and prominent high-rises, with images of painted-over
graffiti. There are endless possibilities for all kinds of consumer products: draperies, napkins, flatware
and fashion akin to the Bridget Riley phenomenon of the 1960s. You name it, painted-over graffiti forms
could enliven all aspects of our visual environment.

Jeff Laird Chicago September 2005 ..............................................Browse images