The art of drawing on walls is a thousand years old, but the modern graffiti appeared in the early 1960s in Philadelphia, USA. In the 1970s, graffiti became more popular, and a lot of people wrote their tags on buildings and trains. In the mid-seventies, it was common not to be able to look out the windows of the trains because they were covered with paintings. During 1970-1980, a lot of discussions of graffiti was whether it was art or vandalism. By the 1980s, it became much harder to write on trains and buildings without getting caught and risk having to pay a fine or be put in jail. But the graffiti artists didn’t give up and found new, clever ways to draw their paintings; a popular way was to draw on rooftops or canvases.

Lady Pink, Seen, OSGEMOS, Phase 2 and Banksy are a few of all the talented and famous graffiti artists in the world. In this article, we're gonna dig deeper and learn a little bit about them.

Her real name is Sandra Fabara, she is around 52-53 years old and born in Ambato in Ecuador. She was one of the first women to actively paint graffiti during the 1980's subway graffiti subculture, and therefore she has got the nickname “first lady of graffiti.” She started her graffiti career in 1979, following the loss of her boyfriend who had been sent to live in Puerto Rico after he had been arrested. To process her sorrow and loss, she tagged her boyfriend’s name all over New York City. Soon she started tagging the name “Lady Pink” derived from her love of historical romances, England, the Victorian period, and the aristocracy. Nowadays, Lady Pink travels around US and visits schools to teach teens the power of art and how it can help with expressing feelings. The way you can recognize Lady Pink’s graffiti is by the playful and warm colors she uses.

His real name is Richard Mirano, and he is born 1961 in Bronx, New York City. Seen is one of the most well-known graffiti artists and he started to do graffiti in 1973 with a group of friend. They called themselves United Artists (UA), and they often did throw-ups on cars. In the 1980s, Seen start to make his art on canvases and they got shown in galleries and bought by museums and collectors all over the world. In the late 1980s, he also opened a tattoo studio, called tattoo Seen. The studio quickly became one of the most popular in New York. Nowadays he does a lot of different type of arts like 3D sculptures, art with recycled materials, hand-drawn stuff, and he also has made some graffitis for video games like Grand Theft Auto V.

Also known as Os Gemos, which means the twins in Portuguese, their real names are Otavio Pandolfo and Gustavo Pandolfo. They are twin brothers born 1974 in São Paulo, Brazil. They started to paint in 1987, and their art can be about everything from family members to politics in Brazil. You can easily recognize the twin brothers' art because they often do yellow skin on their paintings. You can find Os Gemos art all over the world, and they are really popular in Brazil and have even got to legally paint on the trains in the country.

His real name is Lonny Wood, and he was born in 1958 in The Bronx. He started his career in the early 1970s, and he is most known for inventing the softies. Wood is also one of the most well-known and influential graffiti artists in New York City. Wood quickly got pretty bored with only doing some simple tags, so he started to do more complex paintings with different symbols and techniques. He never made paintings that looked similar to something else he did; he wanted all his paintings to be unique, which was something unusual during that time

Banksy is an anonymous England-based artist. There has been speculations about his name, and some people say his name is Robert or Robin. Banksy started to do graffiti around 1990-1994, he started out as a freehand painter, but changed to stencils because freehand paintings took much more time to do.

In 2002, a few of his paintings got shown off in an art gallery in Los Angeles. In 2004, Banksy made false notes and replaced Queen Elizabeth's head with princess Diana’s and changed the text from “Bank of England” to “Banksy of England.” During a carnival, someone threw in a large amount of these notes into a crowd, and a lot of people tried to buy stuff in shops with the notes. Today, the value of the notes is around £200.

Most of Banksy’s paintings are about politics and other social commentary, and they can often be found on buildings and bridges. Banksy has been nominated for many awards. He got the award for being “Person of the Year” in 2014.

Tag - Writing name/logo
Taggers - Those who are writing their names/logos on different places
Throw-ups - Only use a few colours and make a quick and simple graffiti.
Softie - Bubble letters