Deciding on the Research Paper Topic

In elementary school teachers tried their best to take their students to an art museum. My love for art did not form then. It formed the moment my father put me in front of our home’s blank wall and told me, “Draw something that inspires you.” On that day, my father was trying to bring life to the walls of our house. He wanted the walls to represent something meaningful to us. What did I draw? I did my best to draw Stitch. Stitch is an animated character from the movie Lilo & Stitch. After that, my dad left me with the question of whether or not I could actually draw on walls because of my school’s rule: any form of writing, drawing, or mark on school premises was deemed as defacement of school property.

I had this notion that anything that was not specifically stated as mine, would not be a good thing to draw on. On my way home, I would look at the store fronts and the walls in the alleys filled with graffiti and weird symbols that some of the gangs in the neighborhood used. I later learned that each gang marked their territory with the use of spray-paint and walls. My parents did their best to keep me from the violence and the stories behind the walls on the streets, but I grew up in the same neighborhood for nineteen years. Sooner or later, I would also like to paint on walls, specifically the walls of my house. My desire to extend the restrictions set upon me brought me to the street artist Banksy.

When I had to choose who to make the center point of my research paper, I instantly knew it was going to be Banksy. But once I went online and searched for other street artists, I fell in love with the work of the graffiti artist Vhils, also known as Alexandre Farto. His work set itself apart from that of Banksy. Throughout his career, he has been focused on portraying the beauty of the common people and revealing the beauty of locations when everything is so fast paced. From then on, I focused on portraying the worth of street art in my draft.