Street painting is one of the more modern type of art form which have been attracting a lot of attention recently. Street painting, as the name implies is a painting that is applied onto the street and this refers to a pavement and not along the walls although they are sometimes used. Street painting is often associated with graffiti art although they both differ greatly. Typically, street painting is also known to many as street art, pavement or sidewalk art where they tend to attract a lot of on-lookers during the process.
Generally, street art is very much focused on the entire process although the end result can be very overwhelming. Otherwise, it is often regarded to as a type of performance art where an artistic design is painted on the pavement. The artist would usually incorporate works which could be original or non-original where depending on the authorities, they would use either permanent or non-permanent materials. Despite the fact that street art has been gaining much popularity recently, it actually started off in the United Kingdom around the 19th century where it was estimated that by 1890, there were more than 500 pavement artists making money in London who were called ‘screevers’. Back then, street art were mainly involved with the performance arts where it include people acting, singing or performing and this would continue until today.
However, the more contemporary term of street art refers to artists who make their work on the pavement which are usually 3-dimensional. Where this is concerned, the arts would invoke the imagination of the passer-by where they will commonly draw a dropping cave and such and this was very prominently exhibited by Kurt Wenner when he practiced ‘3D pavement art’ around the 1980s. Today, it is one of the most interesting art because of its aesthetic and wildly imaginative elements. Street-paining has garnered much publicity since the first competition and festival was held in 1906 in London. In Italy, it was in 1972 that the first Italian international street painting competition was held while Wenner and Manfred Stader started off street painting in 1987. The largest event in this artform is in the United States called the Lake Worth Street Painting Festival which have been going on since 1994 where some 400 street painters are involved in the event that will attract more than 100,000 visitors over the weekend. More than 200 artists would be involved into turning the streets in Larimer Square into a showcase of chalk art at the Denver Chalk Art Festival which has been started by the Larimer Arts Association since 2002.
Consequently, street paintings would need to be highly imaginative and creative and these artist would have to be able to grasp a certain level of expression in order to produce one which is compelling and somehow realistic. Whether they are fairy tales or have celestial images, the artist would have to immerse the passer-by and the on-looker to its images if they are to create a street painting that will be worthwhile.
