Graffiti and tags are scattered throughout the visual landscape of our major cities.
Whether a complex and elaborate art form or a simple signature of a graffiti artist or a group they belong to, they convey a political message, a demand, a rebellion, a social issue; they reflect our society in all its diversity.

Graffiti is a practice that can be observed since antiquity, linked to popular cursive inscriptions. But in the 1970s in the United States, and then in the 1980s in Europe, the practice of graffiti took on a new dimension. It became integrated into the Western urban landscape.
Graffiti artists employ a particular technique, the spray can, which allows them to cover large surfaces, thus creating veritable murals. From indecipherable signatures to gigantic letters, from polychrome words to fictional characters, graffiti is experiencing a revival today in a variety of forms. The spray can has become the ultimate weapon for silent protest or artistic expression. Whether it takes the form of a tag (a more or less complex signature) or a graffiti mural (a piece covering several square meters), this activity presents a challenge in many respects. Indeed, it challenges the passerby in their anonymity, the authorities in their authority, and the artist in their skill. (Encyclopaedia Universalis)

Sometimes relegated to the status of insignificant scribbles, sometimes elevated to the status of a full-fledged work of art, graffiti is a complex, multifaceted phenomenon, both new and familiar. Graffiti lies at the intersection of several disciplines. The practice of graffiti incorporates elements of calligraphy. Tagging is a work based on a collection of letters. It is a perpetual search for harmonious lines and curves, often drawn with a swift and precise movement. It is also a work with language. The defining characteristic of graffiti and tagging is the display of words. It's about playing with language, often encoding and subverting it. Just like rappers, graffiti artists invent their own unique language. Finally, it's a craft that can be associated with painting: graffiti is a meticulously crafted mural, covering several square meters, created using a specific technique—the spray can.

Graffiti exists within a specific context: the city, and within the city, the street. The street is the shared space of the general interest, as opposed to the private space of individual interests. Ideally, it is therefore the inviolable space of the community, a place where difference is expressed with mutual respect. The law protects this space. Graffiti, then, constitutes a violation of this principle of shared space: it represents a form of privatization of public space, through the expression of a name (tagging) or the imposition of a mural (graffiti). Behind graffiti lies a unique individual, who reveals themselves in the public space through their signature.

Graffiti is a particular form of occupying public space. Graffiti lies at the crossroads of urban life and politics. It reminds us that a city is made up of territory, community, and exchange, but that it is also founded on a symbolic and aesthetic project. By allowing passersby to 'read' a city, graffiti contributes to the creation of its legend, its identity, and the collective imagination of its community. Finally, graffiti bears witness to a distinct culture rooted in American Hip Hop. The power of the image is dominant.

With graffiti, the word becomes a fresco: it takes on a truly spectacular dimension, adorned with vibrant colors, and becomes more complex in its calligraphic form. The word is thus endowed with a unique and surprising pictorial dimension. This visual culture, now dominant in cities, is the essential source of graffiti artists' work. Their technical and artistic skills testify to their creativity.

This vibrant art form with its myriad faces has taken advantage of the powerful driving force of hip-hop to invade our walls, to adorn or deconstruct them, in harmony or dissonance with the historical layers of public spaces. The ephemeral nature of this dance of colors, shapes, and spray paint, combined with the criminal nature of its creation, makes its inscription in the collective memory of cities complex.

My work here aims to immortalize this ephemeral urban art, to transform its temporal scale in order to inscribe it in our collective memory and in the long time of urban sedimentation.