The Reverse Graffiti Project

Paul "Moose" Curtis uses the dirt of the urban landscape as a backdrop for creating his unique public art. (Karma Tube)

Paul “Moose” Curtis calls himself a professor of dirt, so the soot and grime-coated Broadway tunnel in downtown San Francisco was the ideal giant canvas for his recent art project.

Moose makes pictures by cleaning. It’s a unique art form called reverse graffiti (or clean graffiti). He creates his images by using negative space. For the Broadway tunnel project he built giant wooden stencils of native California plants and then selectively blasted away layers of filth with a pressure washer to create a stunning 140-foot long botanical mural in black and white.

This video by Doug Pray (featured on Karma Tube) shows Moose at work in the Broadway tunnel and is driven by audio interviews with the artist. Visit the Reverse Graffiti website to see additional short interview clips with Moose talking about building stencils, working in moss, his reflections on being an artist and how others’ perceive his messy work. As he says, “It’s a cold realization that the world is really, really dirty.”

CHANNEL: Karma Tube

Length: 3:33

Director: Doug Pray
Director of Photography: Malcolm Murray

VIEW: http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=474