What was once seen as a subcultural phenomenon—or even as outright vandalism—graffiti began to attract the attention of galleries and collectors from the 1980s onward. Some graffiti artists moved into studios and started painting on canvas; their works were soon welcomed not only by alternative venues and nightclubs, but also by commercial galleries eager to exhibit and sell them.
Chris (Daze) Ellis was born in Brooklyn, New York. His chosen artist name carries no hidden meaning—he simply selected letters that looked good together as a tag. He began painting on subway cars in 1976 while attending Manhattan’s High School of Art and Design. His first group exhibition was the landmark Beyond Words at the Mudd Club in 1981, followed soon after by his first solo show at Fashion Moda. In 1983, Peter Ludwig acquired his works through the prestigious Sidney Janis Gallery. Daze wrote of his own art: “My work consists of explosively shaped letter forms and drawings, combined with urban caricatures of everyday life. Together these elements present an image of the contemporary present as well as the future.”
His painting Dream City depicts a vision of the metropolis, dominated by a large, plastically modeled male face in blue and black. Against a vivid orange-pink-yellow background, the silhouette of New York—“the city of dreams”—appears on the left. Emerging from a surrounding cloud-bubble, a subway train rushes toward the viewer. The free surfaces are filled with spray-painted inscriptions and tags: the artist’s own name/signature, the abbreviation “NYC,” the words “ghost” and “wisdom,” and further smaller inscriptions across the subway car. This dynamic composition merges the urban sensibility of the “writers” with the aesthetics of graffiti. — Krisztina Szipőcs