He deals with dirt – and cleans up

THE PRINCIPLE

Sometimes doing the opposite provides a new solution

Everybody is familiar with graffiti. Some people consider it art, many consider it vandalism: dirty (sometimes literally as well as metaphorically) messages that pollute the environment.

Artist Paul Curtis turned this around 180 degrees. Going by his graffiti name of Moose, Curtis creates his messages by cleaning urban surfaces and letting the cleaned part be the image. His work appears in Leeds and in Shoreditch, London, and his company, Symbollix, has been hired for ad campaigns by Microsoft, Iageo and others.

He uses stencils, brushes and water as well as sandpaper and razor blades to create images and words from sooty and grotty surfaces including pavements and tunnels.

At one point Leeds City Council threatened legal action against him, but you can’t actually arrest people for cleaning a surface. Since then he’s done work for the Metropolitan Police and both Scottish and English governments and has expanded his work to New York.

The creative person takes a contrarian position and finds ways to make it work. Thinking about the opposite of what most people are doing is a great starting point for a breakthrough.

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