Featured Artist: Dan Witz

Dan Witz wrote this article.  View more of his work at his website.  Click here for info on his upcoming exhibition.

I started doing street art when I moved to New York City in the late1970’s. Every summer since then I’ve put up some kind of anonymous, illegal outdoor work. My early influences were a mixture of punk rebellion, culture jamming and romanticizing the scary blight of New York in the early eighties.

In New York, with the rise in real estate prices and the consequent lowering of tolerance for street art, my installation strategies have had to evolve. I used to spend hours on one piece, standing there painting with tiny brushes. But in the 1990’s, with the police cracking down and graffiti becoming a prosecuted felony, I started working in less trafficked areas. I found ways to get on and off location faster, like using stickers made at home and integrating them into a wall with an airbrush.

These days, the time I spend on site could be less than 60 seconds. I work from my motorcycle out of a portable studio in the saddlebags. Before anyone can figure out what’s happened, I’m usually already gone.