ART LABEL
Crakked Life (b.1967)
Re/Direct No.1, ©️2023
Aerosols on Class 1 AS174 Corflute Reflective Workplace Health & Safety Sign, 600x600x≈5mm, ready to hang, would look unusual yet awesome in a square glass or plexiglass frame (ask if you would love help)
RE/DIRECT ARTIST’S STATEMENT
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Pleasantries my Aussie and International art appreciators, art buyers and at-home art critics; I am the artist Crakked Life—just down the road civil construction is happening to the town’s local footy field. Street signs on star pickets have been posted into the ground to warn road users and pedestrians that there are trucks crossing. Not the sign in front of my studio’s driveway!
When I first saw the warnings I had an idea…
The sign to the left of my driveway, where it was placed by construction site workplace safety officers (whistle blowers) now warns of Ukrainian trucks carting broken Russian T-72 tanks towards peace.
Late one night I removed the sign and later to returned it, embellished and redirected. Drivers passing by will see it by the national road that runs through the state and travels most of the country, Melbourne’s Princes Highway. This sign, and others can be seen on my socials and websites.
I have been playing with street signs for a few years now. An art-side hustle. I have been “acquiring” in-use signs and redirecting them into art pieces.
As an artist, you are always planning five, ten pieces ahead—turning urban signage into art is cheeky, frivolous and a most wonderful break for me to try something quirky, playful and still with my street-art bent.
Admittedly I do get concerned at times that perhaps mu ReDirects are too cryptic. Am I being too clever with my riddles that deciphering them requires this artist to explain. The result would be less than rewarding for my mental health as play becomes a chore.
My traffic signs, with unique ideas enable the anti-authoritarian artist in me to socially lament the notion, not new but mine for my humorous retake. More labels = more control, it’s not more freedom. “Am I the only one noticing this?”
Societal acceptance and inclusion is wonderful, however, has everyone failed to notice the obvious? That’s what my ReDirect art is, a critiquing of the fight or flight strictness of directives and the enforcement bodies that police them. I guess, thinking about it now, it is my way of revealing the hidden whilst sticking my art-finger up at “the man”. (I remembered my audience and changed what I first wrote to, finger up.)
Re/Direct lets me play with the meaning behind the signage to create human-connection that showcases the strictness modern populations have accepted. Re/Direct removes the control abhorrent to all.
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This art practice is an art type called transdisciplinarity; exisiting between art styles. For instance it lives within both activism art and pop art.
Appreciated friends, I trust you enjoy the swirling germination of my thought processes, Re:Direct. Re:Direct really is the only accurate form of “street art”. Let me know what you think by using #crakkedliferedirect on social posts or email crakkedlife@gmail.com.
Coming to a roadway near you, happy paint brushes
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