Basquiat/SAMO established street/outsider stuff as a relevant art inroad to an otherwise ignored culture; they sorta drained the ‘revolutionary’ well for awhile along with Keith Haring’s later, street-adjacent, more accessible vibe. Now that it’s an established thing there are a lot of talented muralists that get commissioned to do buildings and produce coverage for the genre but not specifically as individuals, with a few notable exceptions. Standouts for me personally would be the Pandolfo twins from Brazil, Titi Freak’s high-contrast stroke style is really cool, and I’m in love with Vhils’ method of carving the surface of a building into a relief with chisels to create an artwork that’s part of the building itself.
But to be fair, here’s a rare audio recording of Banksy discussing his/their thematic process which he/they used to come up with masterstrokes such as ‘Pulp Fiction dudes holding bananas instead of guns’, ‘balloon floats away but get this-- it’s a heart’, and ‘protester throwing rock but get this-- it’s a bouquet’.
