Florida School of the Arts professor Michael Burban agrees on the potential of the medium.
"A lot of artists want to be provocative in any way they can because they want to make a name for themselves," he said. "It doesn't have to be in a frame or a gallery to be art."
Graffiti undeniably has its roots in the competitive, illegal "tags" thrown up in the inner cities of the late 1960s and early 1970s. But what began as urban blight has moved off the trains and into the galleries. Former street artists such as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat are household names, and modern pioneers such as Cope2 and T-Kid are touring art houses in Europe.
Meanwhile, some of Orlando's graffiti artists are struggling to make their own defining statement a positive one. On Saturday, RV Art Studios will host Revolution, an all-day art party and homeless feeding that features the Pintura Graffiti Conference, where "writers" both local and national will legally collaborate on 6,000 square feet of wall space. For these faces of Orlando's graffiti underground, it is the opportunity that all artists hunger for: a chance to be seen.
