Reverse Graffiti

For as long as there have been dirty vehicles, people have writing “clean me” on them, but visual artist Alexandre Orion has taken this concept to a new level with his much more creative (and time consuming!) take on ‘reverse graffiti’.  It’s like traditional graffiti, but with an eco twist.

Detergents, wire brushes and good ol’ fashion elbow grease replace the spray cans and stencils that we’re used to seeing from graffiti artists, cleaning away layers of dirt and pollution to reveal the city’s natural facade and material colouring.  Driven overseas where authorities are more relaxed on this issue, though still not entirely supportive of the acts, a tunnel in São Paulo has become the latest canvas to spring reverse graffiti into the fame spotlight.

The process itself is intriguing and fascinating, so if you can spare three minutes this video is well worth a watch.

“He is not vandalising the urban environment as he uses no paint and merely strips away layers of grime and pollution” and besides, there are claims that “no one owns the dirt”, which is actually a rather good point.

Even though he is actually making the city a cleaner place, authorities do seem to frown upon his acts and spend a lot of time and effort chasing down the reverse graffiti antics just to wash them away.

It is a shame that this remarkably creative work is being scrubbed away by the the authorities, but the silver lining, I guess, is that they are actually making the city a cleaner place, which can’t be a bad thing.

More images well worth checking out over here.