"Street Art" In D.C.

     While I was in D.C. I happened upon some art in the street, and while it wasn't strictly "street art", I'm going to refer to it as such just make my life easier.
     The first piece of street art I saw was made up of five canvases, all of which were painted in the same abstract style, with a distinct block element. The main color was an orangey-red, although this was not true for each canvas individually. For instance, the middle canvas was more green than red; however, it still managed to tie into the rest of the piece, making it flow without blending together. All-in-all I liked this one, and while perhaps not something I would have painted, it fit in with the feel of the neighborhood.

Fire

     The next piece of art shared many things with the first. It was broken up into three, square canvases lined up vertically along the side of a building. However, instead of being red, the overall color of this piece was blue (thus the title, Azure). Another difference was that the blocky element of Fire, the first piece, was different from the much more subtle angularity of Azure. Azure still hinted at blocks, but they were definitely not as defined or pronounced, giving the piece a more peaceful, flowing image.

Azure

     After seeing these two pieces I walked (I was on my way to the metro station) under an overpass where the next piece of art was on the wall to my left. It was not on canvases like the last two, but had been placed directly on the concrete. Titled Radiance, it was part mural part painting, with the little bits of iridescent tile to catch the light. This piece was more lighthearted than the others and made use of many colors and textures, however, I think that it's placement could have been better. Being under an overpass limited the light and thus the sparkle, if it had been switched with either Fire or Azure, it would have been much more dazzling.

Radience

     The next piece wasn't really much a piece at all. It was simply colored-in concrete squares of the sidewalk under the mural. The different sections of the sidewalk had been painted randomly with bright colors brightening up an otherwise dull expanse of gum and bird poop spattered concrete.

Painted Sidewalk

      The only piece of "street art" that I really didn't like was the one right outside the entrance of the metro station. Titled Engage, it was very predictable, overly bright, not particularly colorful and looked faintly like a bunch red blood cells, olives, or something else equally gross. Also, it had the feel of something you might encounter in a hotel room or a low-end restaurant, just background noise with out any life of its own. Along with this, it was titled Engage, which sounds to me like something an overly emotional, yoga-doing, inner-peacey person might try to make me do. And finally, it was not the piece I would have chosen to be right at the entrance to the metro station, a very crowded area, where it would be the most observed out of all the pieces.

Engage

~ Adair