Stencil graffiti

Stencil graffiti is a form of graffiti that makes use of stencils made out of paper, cardboard, or other media to create an image or text that is easily reproducible. The desired design is cut out of the selected medium and then the image is transferred to a surface through the use of spray paint or roll-on paint.

The process of stencilling involves applying paint across a stencil to form an image on a surface below. Sometimes multiple layers of stencils are used on the same image to add colors or create the illusion of depth.

Stencils can be done quickly. Together with being cheap and easily repeatable, the short amount of time required to paint a single stencil illegally onto a wall is a key characteristic that makes stenciling attractive.

Stencil graffiti as an art form began in the 1960s. Today it is usually a part of Street Art, in style writing graffiti stencils are not used much or their use is often disguised or not valued.

French artist Ernest Pignon-Ernest stencilled life-size silhouettes of a nuclear bomb victim in the south of France in 1966 (Plateau d'Albion, Vaucluse) with paint and a brush.

Conceptual artists and other artists worked illegally with street stencils in public space since the late 1960s, among them Canadian artist group General Idea in 1969, Chaz Bojorguez in Los Angeles, who started in the same year, Polish conceptual artist Jerzy Trelinski in 1975, New York environmental conceptual artist John Fekner in 1976 or Moscow conceptualist duo SZ group in 1980.

Alex Vallauri began with stencil graffiti in his home town Sao Paulo in 1978 and was the first to start a larger stencil graffiti movement there. Vallauri's (anonymous) stencils were published in France since 1982 and had a larger impact on the New Yorker and later Polish stencil graffiti movements around David Wojnarowicz and Thomaz Sikorski.

Dutch artist Hugo Kaagman is one of the key figures of the Amsterdam punk movement. While studying social geography at the city’s municipal university, he became interested in art movements like Dada and Fluxus. He started stencil graffiti in 1978 as part of the punk movement to demonstrate against the Dutch government.