Sprainter and Street Art

Street art in Rome

Note: The pictures appearing in this post are not my own. Any issues, please let me know.

Street art and some of the artists who work in this style are the background/setting for my young adult dystopian novella Sprainter.

Basquiat - Untitled "Skull" 1984

In Sprainter OZone, the female heroine who shows up in Tronno, asks MrE, an acolyte (religious) street artist who spreads the messages of hope and rebellion through street art, "How's spray painting Bible passages gonna stop the killing?"

The street is the perfect public space for MrE and his group of graffiti artists to spraint (spay paint) their art. MrE usually writes a short Bible reference, such as John 3:16, and then he adds some religious iconography to decorate the text.

Yes, graffiti is vandalism, and no, I do not endorse it. But for a fictional setting, I thought it presented a unique chance to examine the possible lifestyles of two of my favorite artists in a piece of fiction; Bansky and Jean-Michel Basquiat, to begin to pry the lid off this type of artist, and to also bring my characters' religious zeal into the public sphere of action.

Jean-Michael Basquiat

All street art is essentially propaganda. Much of it is political satire, contributing to some aspect of the current political discourse, be it in . This defining characteristic suited my purposes quite well, since I wanted the street artists in Sprainter to be fully involved in their world, regardless of their relatively young age. I want the young adult readers to realize that it is possible to do something to fight injustice - something besides creating a Facebook page and garnering "likes". I do not personally think those pages make any difference, and I seriously worry about the future of political activism when it is reduced to such trite acts as creating a FB page.

Bansky, street art

Towards that end, I love street art. It is big-scale, in-your-face socio-political activism! It can be simple, or complex, but it is always driven by a desire to expose social injustice, and to sometimes point the way to change the status quo. These are two traditional characteristics of  great art.

In Sprainter, I sought to bring this artist-revolutionary spirit to the forefront of political-religious activism and this story afforded me the opportunity to explore such extremes, including how zeal (religious or otherwise) can, if propelled by reasons other than love, can itself easily slip into oppression and persecution.

If you're interested in young adult romances, art-themed fiction, a dystopian setting, and religious inspirational fiction, then you will enjoy Sprainter, available from Smashwords and most e-tailers.



Just a note before leaving you. I wish to clarify any possible misunderstandings about Basquiat and Banksy: To the best of my knowledge, neither artist has expressed their religious views in their street art the way MrE does in Sprainter.

Jean-Michel Basquiat died of a heroin overdose at the age of 27 in 1988. Banksy is wanted by police agencies throughout the world. Although his identity has been a well-guarded secret for years, I just discovered this recent photo.

 ~JT~