Visitors walk around the large room, examining prints and canvases. They ask the artists about the techniques and meaning behind their works. For a second, it looks like a scene out of any one of Evanston’s numerous high-end galleries.
Except that the art on display is usually found on the side of a building rather than inside it. On Friday, Theoport, Evanston’s first gallery dedicated to graffiti, opened at 1611 Simpson St.
The brainchild of Ted Boggs, Theoport means “God’s gate” in Greek and Latin and is a twist on Boggs’ first name. “Art Broke Away,” the gallery’s first exhibit, features over 50 works by Boggs and four other Evanston graffiti artists.
Boggs, 21, a sophomore illustration major at Columbia College in Chicago, started doing graffiti when he was in the seventh grade and more recently worked on several murals in Evanston. When he began managing an industrial storage building three weeks ago, he decided to transform the empty upper floor into an exhibition space.
Boggs then invited the other artists, all high school friends, to bring their talent indoors.
“We’re pulling out of the street atmosphere to see what people think of it,” he said. “For us, graffiti is everywhere. It’s in our rooms; it’s on our notebooks. It’s our life.”
To domesticate the genre, the artists began to explore new surfaces. It’s still the same colorful abstraction of letters, shapes and designs that come to mind when people think of graffiti. The only difference is that now it’s portable, and artists don’t have to worry about someone coming around to paint over their work.
Working on new media posed certain challenges that graffiti artists normally don’t encounter. It took Ole Flores, 22, three to six hours to paint on canvas.
“Every stroke, you’ve got to get it right,” Flores said. “If not, you mess up the whole painting.”
The opening night attracted about 50 curious art-seekers, a response to Boggs’ flyer campaign that reached as far south as Chicago’s Hyde Park.
Evanston resident Victor Grimm, 68, learned about Theoport from his son.
“Evanston needs more urban culture, especially for young artists who are trying to get started,” Grimm said. “It’s great to bring it indoors because a lot of graffiti art is good work.”
Boggs spread the paintings over two rooms that featured exposed brick walls, wooden ceiling beams and concrete floors. His works, which he did on wood panels and a piece of fence he found in an alley, mixed geometric figures and lines to make disjointed yet compelling abstractions.
In one of Boggs’ paintings, “Train Talk,” convoluted shapes and lines show why it belongs in the graffiti category. But step a few yards back and Boggs’ creation loosely resembles Picasso’s “Guernica.”
Flores has already sold one of his works for $100. Minus supplies it works out to $80 of profit, but for three hours of work, Flores admits, “it’s still a good deal.” The possibility of earning money for his art served as an incentive for Flores to take his work inside and avoid jail time for stealing paint or engaging in street graffiti.
“Someone coming here can appreciate it more than they would on the streets,” Flores said. “They can see it as art, not as vandalism.”
Reach Greg Hafkin at [email protected].
