Paul Bloas,
50, creator of
Europe's '
graffiti giants', is not your average
graffiti artist - his daytime job for the last twenty years has been that of '
artist' - with many showings of his works, and many auction houses having sold his works under the gavel.
Bloas lives and centers his activities in
Brest, France, however he also has been plying his "
graffiti giants" across
Europe in such diverse corners as
London, Berlin, Bilbao, Beirut and
Belgrade. His outsized paintings vary in size, starting from two to three meters in height, and are usually rendered on ordinary workshop paper. The paintings, usually done at his own studio, are then brought to the selected sites and put up, pasted up, like giant posters.
The "
giants" are naturally at the mercy of bad weather, or more radically - the 'claw of man', but in any case, it can at least be said that these '
Bloas Giants' do not permanently scar the neighborhood.
One primary difference between an "
artist" and a true "
graffiti artist" is that the "
artist" invariably needs to philosophize and explain his work, where the "
graffiti artist" puts it out there for what it is.
Bloas, as artist, is no different - he explains that it is not his intent to hit the viewer in the eye with a bright pointed object, but rather let the work be absorbed by the viewer as part of the surrounds. He notes of his '
giants' of
Lisbon; '...their dark silhouettes suggest the difficult days of
European countries most affected by the crisis.' To the uninitiated eye, this would sound like opportunism....
ahennnh...
Another fundamental difference between "
artist" and "
graffiti artist" is, as in
Bloas' case, many of his '
graffiti giant' works are, in fact, commissioned. Nevertheless, many are not (even though there is still the unavoidable, lingering hint of '
self-promotion' raising it's dollar-sign head). He is currently pursuing his '
graffiti giants' program - searching for new hosts for his
paper titans.
Bloas recently completed a series of paintings at an old
Foreign Legion camp in
Diego Suarez Bay, in the northern tip of
Madagascar - a project he started in
1999. This mega-project was of special interest to
Bloas, as
Madagascar is the land of his childhood. He is currently selling his book (and/or a DVD) entitled, "
Mada, Standing on Land and Water" - which documents this artistic
tour-de-force.
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