Life and Love in the Age of Covid

When the COVID-19 lockdown hit and everyone was told to stay home and isolate I had just finished recovering from a very intense job and was about to begin another. I had, by that point, already reached my Netflix limit and after about a month of staring at the ceiling, twiddling my thumbs and petting my cat I needed to start getting out of the house while still respecting the social distancing requirements that the COVID pandemic had created. My solution was to go for long walks through the byways and back alleys of the city I live in. It was during one of those early walks that I came across the laneway graffiti in the first image of this series. I was instantly captivated and began to search for other examples of graffiti that were of the same quality and intensity. Finding more of them wasn’t at all difficult. They were everywhere once I turned on my ability to see them. Of course I was aware of the existence of graffiti prior to the start of this project but, like many others, I considered it to be a form of vandalism in many, if not most, cases. During my walks I was surprised to discover instead a vibrant art form of surprisingly high quality that often responded to, and commented on, current social issues. My challenge has been in finding a way to document another artist’s work in a way that honours it and expands upon it. That is why I chose to focus on the interaction between the art and its audience.