Around 2001 when I first moved to Brighton, I was a texture artists for a computer games company. I liked to collect my own photo reference for building realistic in-game textures. After a while can't look at anything without breaking it down in to colour and form. Everything is a texture. And the one thing that really started to stand out for me was the excessive amount of arrows. Everywhere I went, there they were. Thats about the time I started photographing them.
Being into graffiti you get a love for the arrow, normally adding armour or style to a letterform. So when you see start to see them on your travels you just can't stop seeing them. But then looking around it seems we have come to accept it as out most basic form of communication. Go that way. Travel this way. Put money in here. Move point a to point b in that direction.We are directed every where we go.
Back then when I started we only had a 3mp camera, so there's some grainy shots in there. Its funny how quickly over the years the cameras kept getting better. I never intended at first to collect these, it just happend. I never did get around to posting them on the Ikonoklast Movement website, which we stopped but lately with more people sharing their photos on line I started to notice I was not alone in seeing these things. We all get obsessed in some weird artifacts. And graffiti artists are especially drawn to the arrow, just check 'Style Wars' if you haven't seen it. (How can you not have seen it?). Check out Rammellzee's Ionic Treatise Gothic Futurism.
View my photos here Everyone has got their own arrow
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