Street art or public nuisance?

SPRAY-PAINTING MONTREAL

Sterling Downey, a veteran of Montreal's graffiti scene and regular guest lecturer at Anna Waclawek's art history classes, pictured in front of one of his own images. He co-founded Montreal's Under Pressure festival in 1996.

For two decades, Sterling Downey has been at the centre of Montreal’s graffiti community, in which he is also known by his tag, SEAZ. This articulate 40-year-old marketing professional is nothing like the juvenile delinquent cliché commonly associated with graffiti. Downey, a regular guest lecturer at Anna Waclawek’s art history classes, contends the reverse is true. “Graffiti writers who have the most impact and are extremely prolific are much older than people perceive,” he says. “They’re anywhere between 25 and 40.”

As well as leaving his mark on the city’s walls, Downey has also developed Montreal’s graffiti scene by co-founding the Under Pressure festival in 1996, a magazine of the same name three years later and, more recently, the Fresh Paint pop-up gallery. Under Pressure is the world’s oldest graffiti festival, and its 18th instalment will be held August 10 to 11.

“Graffiti is the biggest art movement that’s ever existed,” claims Downey, who dipped his toe in the water as a 12-year-old when he -- rather foolishly, he later realized -- sprayed his real name on a few walls. He became active during the early 1990s, when, according to Downey, there were only about 25 graffiti writers in Montreal. Half were from France, and all around age 20: “There were no teenagers doing graffiti back in my day,” he says.

Around the year 2000, art students began taking their creativity to Montreal’s streets. “They were still trying to do it in a signature graffiti format,” Downey recalls. “By 2004 it was more common to use different media than spray paint because there was a lot of documentation from around the world,” such as Banksy doing stencils and Miss Van using paint brushes. “Now it’s commercialized,” he says. “Everyone and their kids are doing it.”

Montreal's crumbling former motel Raphael is a target for graffiti -- and a very public eyesore.