In the lower levels of the Chemistry Building, artwork is spray-painted on the gray, cinderblock walls. Exploring the campus by moonlight, a group of freshmen found the graffiti when they were drawn to the depths of an outdoor mini-basement.
“We went on an adventure and found this sketchy tunnel,” freshman Stephanie St. Amour said. “You wouldn’t expect anything interesting to be in this tunnel, but it was filled with awesome graffiti.”
The artists painted faces on the wall and allocated each face a different emotion, creating an array of anger, peace and confusion. Blue was the only color used to paint these faces, possibly insinuating an underlying theme of peace,
St. Amour said.
The Chemistry Building isn’t the only place in Bloomington where art takes to the streets and unassuming walls. Walls around Bloomington have increasingly been filled with bold graphics and have likewise been appreciated.
“I really enjoy graffiti. I like to look at it, and when I walk by it I’ll take five seconds to look at it, or if it’s really good, five minutes,” said Jason Voegeli, co-owner of Baked!
of Bloomington.
Voegeli said places known as “free walls” are located on Atwater and Mitchell streets. These locations serve as areas where artists can paint legally on walls built specifically for graffiti.
Senior Jurion Jaffe said free walls on campus and around town are a great way for young artists to express themselves without illegally painting buildings.
“Bloomington specifically has a couple of sanctioned places for graffiti artists,” Jaffe said. “I went to Harmony School where there is actually a graffiti wall, and part of that was to stop people from painting inside because it can get out of hand. But it’s kind of a catch-22 because part of what makes graffiti a culture, part of the excitement, is that they do it without permission.”
Despite the illegality of the art form, some business owners appreciate the presence of such creativity in town.
“I definitely see graffiti’s place in pop culture, and it definitely gives our town some popularity and personality,” said Jeremy Ness, another co-owner of Baked!.
Voegeli said graffiti is sometimes under-appreciated due to a high level of misunderstanding of the medium. But both the creative and political aspects of the public art form are still recognized by people like Jaffe.
“I think graffiti is an important democratic form of art and expression,” Jaffe said. “It is a way people can exercise individual agency against what they see as corporate monsters or spaces devoid of art.”
