ArtOne | Aerosol HandStyles

“A picture always has to match the interior. Not only because of the art, it has to be art in itself, but for me the aspect that art also suits the interior is important. This is very important. It takes a good look for art to fit into the environment. That there is always a connection somewhere.” (ArtOne, 2021)

ArtOne: That's two words combined into one with a powerful statement. The writer's pseudonym is embedded in a network of colorful lines that condense into energy centers and create tension on the picture surfaces. Welcome to the exhibition Aerosol HandStyles from ArtOne im OZM HAMMERBROOKLYN. With incredible ingenuity and an artistic flair ArtOne his signature to show his skills. Eagerly like a researcher, he consistently declines his signature in the exhibition rooms in a style mixture of tag and calligraphy. Since there are also pictures from his earlier creative years there, the artistic development can ArtOnes can be understood very well. The tagging, the different forms of representation of its letters and the development of different writing styles are all content that you can learn from Aerosol HandStyles Can be found. If you take the time, you can very well see the change in the writing styles of ArtOnes Identify letters.

Like some other artists in the OZM, started ArtOne his career as a graffiti artist in the late 1980s in urban Hamburg. An unusual project followed a few years later when the Altonaer Museum invited some young sprayers from the street to take part in a project and to show even then that graffiti can also appear in a museum context. ArtOne took part in the action and later exhibition in 1991. Two of his paintings, which are now 30 years old, are still in the museum's collection today. Another important experience that ArtOnes art in the early 1990s was his contact with the canvas. Inspired by American and French graffiti artists who were already painting on this material in the 1980s, it also began ArtOne to experiment with. The canvas is a smaller, more confined space than a wall outside. But it was precisely this aspect that the artist liked very much. In those early years, the sprayers weren't selling their paintings, but they were already there. And so present the pictures in ArtOnes exhibition not only shows his career from a young street writer to an artist, but they are also historical testimonies that give an insight into the artistic development of graffiti style writing. The works are an expression of their time and the individuality of the artist. Hanging on the walls of the exhibition, they begin to shape our current image and at the same time become an image of their present.

With its rhythm and style, writing has always presented a person's personality and is provided with atmosphere. The same applies to the written tag. Initially referred to as "hit" in America, the English word "tag" (German, among other things, "marking" or "label") was adopted into the vocabulary of German-speaking writers with the same meaning in the early 1980s. The tag is the original form of the piece that developed from it and presents the unmistakable handwriting of a writer. It also shows parallels to calligraphy, which in turn is not understood as the art of writing without reason. The tag, which is often the pseudonym of a graffiti writer, is usually written quickly and without putting down the tool in one go. It is almost always monochromatic. To attach a tag, waterproof markers are often used in addition to the spray can. However, tags can also be made with paint rollers or other utensils. Also scratching the pseudonym is a common method. Tags can be found both inside and outside and on a wide variety of surfaces. In the scene, the way a graffiti writer paints his tag is called "hand style". "Aerosol" is known both as a term for the gaseous mixture of paint that is in the spray cans and as another term for graffiti art. A unique handstyle is what every writer aims for. A nice connection to the exhibition title can be seen here. This own incomparable handwriting is determined in part by the regional environment. It also takes a lot of time and patience to develop your own hand style. This can sometimes take several years. But once the writer has shaped his day, he practices it and paints it often until he can write it quickly, confidently and in the same form over and over again. For most graffiti writers, the primary goal is therefore to create a good and innovative style with the tag. Originality and quality are therefore in the foreground. Some graffiti sprayers as well ArtOne have perfected their tags into works of art.

That the tag and also the font development takes up most of the space in ArtOnes pictures is very easy to see, since writing is the primary subject of the exhibition. In addition to the various possible shapes of the letters, he is also interested in new impulses that he gains while painting. The subject of the day is not yet "finished" for the artist, since he keeps finding new things when making his pictures. These discoveries open up for ArtOne new contexts that give him an immensely satisfying feeling and impetus for new ideas. It is striking that he prefers a cursive, cursive-like variant, especially for the pictures from the last few years. This suits the character of a tag very well, as this font can be implemented quickly and in one go.
Our Latin alphabet is more than 2000 years old and has changed again and again since it was created due to sociological and technological requirements. Around the 12th century z. For example, the Carolingian minuscule increasingly takes on a cursive character in a secular context. From this type of writing developed then in the 17./18. Century the English cursive, which shortly thereafter held the status of an artistic script in the English circles. This font was used for both private and business correspondence. Its advantage and decisive innovation lay in the speed and clarity with which it could be written. Furthermore, for the first time in history, English cursive had all the letters of a word connected, making it extremely suitable for practical use. Because of this and through British trade relations, it was widespread around the world until the middle of the 18th century. Since the 1950s, interest in calligraphy has grown in many cultures and over the past 20 years it has become an art form in its own right.
In tagging as well as in calligraphy, the writing tool has a major impact on the appearance of a letter. Characteristics such as angular or pointed, soft, rigid or elastic influence the rhythm and speed of writing. Everyone develops their own preferences. The tags at ArtOnes pictures are usually executed with a greater inclination of the letters and extended ascenders and descenders, and sprayed with a needle cap, which allows for an extremely precise and thin painting style. Incoming leads ArtOne Drips fill many of his tags, often ending in long lines and a common feature in the art of style writing.

Just as important in calligraphy as the shape of the letters is the way words are arranged on a page and the effect of the structure that results. at ArtOne In the works of recent years, this appears, similar to Jackson Pollock, like a space that seems to have no beginning and no end, no center and no clearly recognizable perspective. The structures present themselves as an excerpt from an infinite continuum. The signatures and strokes meander across the entire surface of the picture like a dance-like line configuration. In some places they combine to form entanglements. Everything stays on the canvas, nothing “falls” out of the borders of the picture and spills onto the walls. There ArtOne the colors are applied to the substrate in several layers, giving the surfaces a tactile strength that can be experienced, and as a result optical depth.
Painted in the early years ArtOne very clean and accurate. Drips were a thorn in his side. Later he also began to mask off, but this technique only satisfied him for a while because at some point he could no longer identify with it. A little frustrated and instinctively, a canvas was created on which he kept writing from left to right, "ArtOne, ArtOne, ArtOnewrote. In addition, he let the flowing paint run its course and the first drips emerged in his works, which over time became more and more important for the design of the pictures. This one picture had a great influence on his further work. Today the images stand out ArtOne through a balanced mix of coincidence and purposefully used colours, materials and various techniques. at Aerosol HandStyles In addition to the use of the spray can, the use of brushes, spatulas, paint rollers and construction foam can also be found.
There are new effects and material mixtures, e.g. B. if ArtOne through his other job he got hold of a remnant of high-quality Chinese silk wallpaper, which he could use to create a new work. This is how the picture shows us Colorful Aerosol Handstyles On Chinese Silk Wallpaper (in the middle) an interesting and fascinating mixture of high-quality background material and the rather cheap paint from the spray can.

With this picture knew ArtOne not know in advance how the wallpaper would react with the paint. He had to spray this work several times because the fabric soaked up the paint. Due to this fact, the drips in this work are extremely delicate and the lines of its tags are also fine. In addition, the choice of colors that contrast with the background gives the work an effective charisma. The result is a very aesthetic picture that not only impresses with the individual hand style of the artist, but also with a subtle sheen thanks to the silk wallpaper.

The pictures of ArtOne characterized by diversity and excitement. In addition, the exhibition shows that the artist manages very well to use differentiated and well-calculated colors and to apply them in skilful sequences of movements. The works have a clear rhythm and an absolutely secure structure of the picture surfaces, which, however, do not have a centre, but instead all parts of the picture are of equal value and thus evoke the impression of imaginary infinity. The more classically designed exhibition environment of the pictures supports the effect of the works. The neutral white walls, the barely audible footsteps muffled by the black carpet, the darkened windows and also the black ceiling direct the viewer’s gaze to the art of ArtOne. Nothing distracts the visitor's attention from the artworks. In the rooms of Aerosol HandStyles There is a pleasantly quiet and relaxed ambience that invites you to study the pictures and linger. In contrast to the rest of the exhibition, but still in a harmonious interplay, two rooms were set up that are reminiscent of well-known public places where tags can be found in everyday life. In addition, well-known materials that writers often use for their works have been integrated into the two rooms. At this point, a piece of the conventional and well-known presentation site of tags is brought into the exhibition context, thereby establishing a thematic as well as visual connection. The combination of well-known exhibition design, which is used in many galleries and often in the contemporary departments of museums, with urban art creates an extraordinary and unconventional mixture.

ArtOne proves with his exhibition Aerosol HandStyles his skills as a writer and artist. His tags and pieces show an excellent flow of the letters, a consistent cohesion of the words and a balanced coherence in the proportions. Through the pictures of ArtOne moves the art of type design away from its image as a rather closed discipline that stands alone, thereby proving that it is not a static phenomenon, but rather an applied art of society that can change again and again and thus remains topical.

Sources:

Leonard Emmerling: POLLOCK, Cologne 2009.

David Harris: 100 calligraphic alphabets, Stuttgart 2012.

David Harris: The Art of Writing. A guide to calligraphy, Munich 2016.

Peter Kreuzer: The graffiti dictionary. Wall art from A to Z, Munich 1986.

Jörg Schuenemann: graffiti tag [online] Website: The Graffiti Wiki URL: https://www.graffiti-wiki.com/tutorial/graffiti-tags/ [Status: 15.09.2021/XNUMX/XNUMX].