~RATWORK

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About Me Member Graffiti Artist RATWORKMale/United States

Recent Activity Deviant for 8 Months
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WNDWS
by ~RATWORK

CTHDRL
by ~RATWORK

TRNZT
by ~RATWORK

CRRDWY
by ~RATWORK

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TIJUANA

36 in (w) x 24 in (h) spray paint and stencil on stretched canvas

First painted on Jul 24, 2008

Originals for sale at www.RATWORK.net

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pink lacquered skies revisited
by ~katherine06

ROCK AND ROLL
by ~fakestencils

Look mum, I ate paint
by ~waattt

Coexistence
by ~averagegoof

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~egauseless	~waattt
*cody-16	~puddeneen
~pencil-paper	~b0oren
~eTARDED	~onpatrol
~Sharpies-and-Ink	~hundybauchy37

deviantID

Originals available at www.RATWORK.net

I am a contemporary stencil artist drawing inspiration from street art, pop art, graffiti, and the world around me. My goal is to create art that is colorful, fun, interesting, and above all, current.

on color and iconography

It's easy to see that I love color. My primary goal in art is to bring new life to people or objects by viewing the world around me as my personal coloring book.

I also use familiar imagery in many of my paintings. I enjoy the distraction of easily recognizable iconography in my work, enabling me to juxtapose multiple subjects, whether related or completely random.

on selling prints

I will never sell prints of my work. I believe that everyone should have an original canvas in their home. The purpose of street art is to bring art to public space, where nobody has to pay to see it. Many original paintings are priced so far out of reach for most people that the only "real" art they see is in a gallery. In the spirit of street art, I want to bring original works of art within the reach of anyone who wants one.

on unlimited editions

Unlimited editions allow me to keep my prices low. I'm able to create as many original paintings as I want from the same stencil and price them within reason. If that makes it worth less to you, you're buying my art for the wrong reason.

in defense of spray paint

Whenever I tell anyone I use only spraypaint in my art, their mind seems to immediately make the leap to "graffiti" and "vandal." Spray paint seems to be perceived as the scum of art, conjuring images of tagged up trains, boarded up buildings, and those guys who make space paintings on Fisherman's Wharf.

Graffiti, and spray paint itself, has a bad name. Don't get me wrong, I can clearly see why it can be vandalism. At the same time, the time and effort that goes into the really good pieces rivals that of murals that cities spend thousands of dollars commissioning. It brings art and color into places where it hadn't existed, turning the world into a gallery with no entry price.

Banksy noted that rats are the unwanted pests of society, forced to live in the sewers and eat trash, but yet have the power to bring a society to its knees. As an art, spray paint seems to be that unwelcome pest with a bad reputation. Some even believe that spraypaint and graffiti lead to societal decline and an increase in violent crime in an environment. That's where the name RATWORK comes from (it's also an anagram of "artwork"). The general public and the art world needs to see that there's a place for a can of spraypaint in the world of fine art.