Grim Lock

 

There are still abandoned buildings in the power house district, fallow warehouses and factories made of brick, perfect canvases for street art and graffiti and hybrids of the two. Get these canvases while they last, condos are coming and with them, private security companies.  Incoherent and inexplicable, sure sometimes, but there are glimmers of illustrative talent even in this “Grim Lock.” A google reveals the likely reference – an “evil” Transformer – thus proving my theory no one over 30 commits graffiti (unless they commit street art and are beyond giving a damn).  A fetishizing of childhood nostalgia distinguishes generations younger than mine. If only Johnny Quest lived on as a cultural touchstone in the hearts and minds of my peers! But the Transformer Grim Lock looks nothing like this, which reminds me of a computer game icon, like Pac Man, but that’s another, now well beyond graffiti appropriate age, generation’s cultural touchstone and computer games since then have more depth of field than a Ridley Scott flick. Then it occurred to me, maybe this isn’t the actual Grim Lock, it’s the depiction of the artist’s hand impersonating a muppet version of Grim Lock. My guess anyhow.