by Bryan Gibel
Daily Lobo
Instead of decorating the pavement with spray-paint graffiti, artists are going to the gallery to display their artistic crimes.
Bomb the Canvas, an exposition at the North Fourth Arts Center at 4904 Fourth St. N.W. through Oct. 28, allows graffiti artists and aficionados to have a long-lasting venue for their paintings. It features about 100 works of graffiti-inspired art from more than 25 local and national artists.
Rick Padilla, the expo's founder, said about 400 people attended the show's opening Oct. 5. It featured DJs, breakdancing from the UHF?Krew and a raffle for signed prints of
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selected works.
"Our goal isn't to get a name for ourselves," Padilla said. "Everything has to do with the young men and women that are participating and bringing in their art. We're trying to show the community that these kids are talented and they've got skills."
Susanna Kearny, marketing director for the arts center, credited Bomb the Canvas as the reason people have come by the gallery on the weekends.
"It's drawing on what, for us, is an untapped audience,"
Kearny said.
While many taggers scrawl their aliases on every surface available in a quest for fame, that's not what Bomb the Canvas is about,
Padilla said.
He said he set up the show to present a side of Albuquerque's art scene usually pushed to the
margins.
"We wanted to do something that would give back to the community and would show that graffiti isn't disrespectful," he said. "My goal is to bring in the artists, but also the art collectors."
Artists get 80 percent of what their work sells for, Padilla said. The rest will be invested in next year's show.
Selling a work of art can be life-changing for the artists who haven't displayed their work in a gallery, he said.
"When you call them up and tell them they've sold a piece, it's like Christmas to a kid," Padilla said. "But that just inspires them to come back and keep doing what they're doing better."
Organizer Joseph Sullivan said painting in public is part of graffiti's essence, and that's difficult to recreate in a gallery.
"Putting art on canvas makes it more palatable to society - it's the form that's generally accepted," he said. "The
problem is it's not graffiti anymore."
Staying true to graffiti's spirit as public art, artists from Bomb the Canvas painted four murals around the city the day after the gallery opening.
"Bomb the Canvas is helping people realize that graffiti artists aren't all gangbangers and thugs," Sullivan said. "That's an awesome accomplishment, but graffiti artists want to paint walls. Hopefully, the city won't come and buff them all indiscriminately."
