SPRAYGNOSIS: Toy awareness in Estonia

In the midst of an aerosol mayhem of phallic representations, emoji symbolism and injunctions to narcotic consumption, the Toys writes their name and define a plastic jungle, on the fringe of the Kings and their polished game.In the slang of graffiti, we call Kings the gatekeepers of the true style, obeying the calligraphic canon inherited from the movement’s pioneers ; and Toys the outsiders, who, ignorant of the dos and don’t, lack of ability or out of sheer rebellious mindset, go against the aesthetical codes accepted by the scene.I started the collection alone in 2020, and finished it in 2022 with the massive help of my friend Karin, whom I wish to thank for the thousands of pictures she sent to my curatorial expertise. The photographic eye focuses on units of intervention, isolating the most exorbitant phenomenon, in the attempt to recreate, by the means of the serie, the craze of a spirit in the form of a riddle, where the whole is contained into each of its parts.Ghetto adolescent poetry, transgressive, punk and funky, organically unfolding in the nonchalancy of any critical appreciation able to distinguish its purpose. We can trace back to some intuition of primitivism, to art brut collections and naive painting : the idea of an untouched art, original and regenerative, barbaric, innocent, painting to the cultured eye the landscape of the lost paradise of art’s origin.Marceau Couve Read more