As the buzzer sounded, signaling for the battle to begin, muralist and painter Rixy dipped her brush into the watered-down black paint and streaked it across the canvas, making the first mark in the Support Your Local Artist (SYLA) live paint battle at Big Night Live on Oct. 11.
“I think it is going to be a toe,” my friend whispered in my ear as we attempted to decipher what each small but carefully placed mark on the canvas would turn into.
The curved line eventually became a cartoon eye of the half-woman, half-skull demon face that occupied the majority of the canvas of the White Team, composed of Rixy and the artist Tallboy. So no, not a toe.
The piece of art that Rixy and Tallboy created was one of two graffiti-style pieces crafted during the SYLA tour in Boston, organized by Secret Walls, an organization that began in the district of Shoreditch in London and aims to promote art, especially of local artists, and show support to its communities.
Over 16 years ago, Terry Guy started the live arts entertainment group after he developed an interest in the culture of street art when he moved to London for college.
Guy began attending graffiti parties, breakdancing events, and rap battles in the art district in East London. He formed a collective of other people interested in graffiti, and they started to put together events that placed art at the forefront instead of dancing or hip-hop.
“[Street art] was very underground and kind of classed as illegal or like a vandal’s hobby,” Guy said. “But I saw a lot of talent there.”
Guy said the paint battles that Secret Walls organizes are like a “visual rap battle.” The artists chosen for the battle are placed in teams right before the battle starts. This way, there is no pre-planning or pre-drawing. It is completely freestyle.
“They just need to create—live in the moment in front of hundreds of folks,” Guy said.
The artists are given 90 minutes to cover a 6-foot-tall, blank white canvas. They are also only given black paint. According to Guy, this ensures that the artists have no way of erasing their mistakes and just have to keep painting.
When my friend and I walked into Big Night Live for the paint battle, instead of being directed to the main music hall, we were surprised to be sent to a smaller room off to the side. The floors were covered in black and white tiles with purple and blue LED lights lighting up the room, making the stark white canvases in the center shine.
Hip-hop remixes reverberated through the crowd of exactly the type of people you would expect to find at a live graffiti show. There were B-boy dancers called to put on a dance show while the artists painted in the background and young people dressed in cargo pants and Dr. Martens—the markings of art school students.
Seeing a group of people around me with enough of an appreciation for street art to watch artists paint for 90 minutes provided me with a sense of belonging. I felt like I was a part of the East London art scene that first inspired Guy to create this organization in the first place.
Artists can apply to be in the live paint battles through an online form. For the show I attended in Boston, the artists chosen were Imagine, Mags Munroe, Tallboy, and Rixy. Since this show was part of the SYLA tour, all of them hailed from Massachusetts.
Mags Munroe had previously competed in and won a Secret Walls paint battle in Worcester, Mass. Mags Munroe mainly works with digital art but, as demonstrated by her performance in the paint battle, can easily transfer her artistic talent to other mediums.
Rixy, on the other hand, mainly focuses on street art, including murals. She bases a lot of her work around narratives and social causes.
“It was my thing to be able to have a lot of social impact around what graph and street art was doing for me compared to gallery and contemporary work” Rixy said.
Rixy partnered with Tallboy on the White Team while Mags Munroe and Imagine paired as the Black Team, the colors of their shirts mimicking the colors allowed in the paint battle.
Nothing on the canvases seemed unintentional even though it was all unplanned. The artist’s actions seemed almost choreographed as they added each shape.
I feel like one of the major critiques of graffiti, besides its misassociation with vandals, is that it’s too simplistic. But even if the shapes are simple, how quickly and perfectly the artists can execute it proves the skill level required. Both teams performed minimal outlining, and there were no noticeable mistakes in either work.
I have been interested in graffiti since seeing the exhibit of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work at the Museum of Fine Arts in 2021, but my only real experience with street art culture has been walking past graffiti on buildings in Allston or New York. I was mesmerized by every moment of the paint battle.
I do not know what I want to do with my life, but I know I want to be part of a culture and collective that makes watching and supporting art a regular part of my day-to-day affairs.
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