AEON
artist  
active Australia 2003

not titled [Aeon graf] 2003
stencil
artist's proof , published state
Not signed. Not dated. Not titled. Not inscribed.
printed image 18.0 (h) x 17.2 (w) cm
Gordon Darling Australia Pacific Print Fund 2007
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
NGA 2007.46.1
© Aeon

Melbourne based graffiti artist Aeon takes his name from the animated television program Aeon Flux. As a child Aeon would travel the Belgrave train-line through Melbourne; a regular ride that was enlivened by spotting graffiti out the window and was to trigger his early interest in the subculture. Aeon has been working seriously since 1996 amongst a solid crew of artists whose roots are firmly entrenched in the Melbourne graffiti scene.

Graffiti is based on the ‘tag’ – an individual moniker adopted by all graffiti writers – which is obsessively written and re-written in order to experiment with stylistic possibilities and to further refine the abstraction of lettering. Aeon’s main aesthetic concerns are style and colour and the writer maintains that as long as these two elements are strong then his piece will look fresh. In this particular work, the letters A-E-O-N are skilfully abstracted and deliberately obscured from the uninitiated viewer. Aeon has also implanted an arrow within the work, an important repetitive element of the visual language of graffiti to emphasise the ‘flow’ of lettering.

The angle of the letters and the graduated colour scheme in Aeon’s piece explode off the wall, giving the work an immediate vibrancy. The use of brilliant green contrasts with a typically dull urban environment (or even a pristine gallery space); the work is cheeky, unapologetic and full of energy. In the words of graffiti commentator Brian Gonnella, Aeon is a master of ‘crazy looking letters, bright-ass colours, brilliant colour schemes and perhaps the most important thing in all graffiti: good arrow usage.’ [1]

Corrinna Cullen

[1] Brian Gonnella, http://www.bombingscience.com/index.php/blog/viewThread/2424