At ‘Art After Dark,’ Baltimore graffiti writers to create out of the shadows Thursday night

Baltimore graffiti writers’ skills will be projected six stories high Thursday night.

At “Art After Dark” at The Meadow at 200 Park Ave. from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., the spray-paint transformation of vacant West Lexington Street storefronts marks a rare celebration of an art form often practiced by nature out of the spotlight.

“This is a rare opportunity in this neck of the woods,” said Adam Stab, a street artist from Highlandtown. “Usually, you don’t get to see graffiti develop. Really good graffiti is a mystery. It’s interesting. It’s a dance. It’s very physical. You’re moving up and down.”

As graffiti writers create murals across metal pull-down doors, digital artist Terry Kilby will film their progress and project their live work onto the side of a building to DJ beats and a light show.

“I’m going to take all these camera feeds and project them onto the wall. They’ll respond to music, and we’re going to be laying over video and animation artwork on top of it,” Kilby said.

Last month Kilby, who is the founder of Baltimore-based Evergreen Digital Imaging, created an immersive projection show inside the Parkway Theatre in the Station North neighborhood for the Maryland Film Festival.

Thursday night the murals will be on West Lexington between Park and North Howard Street while Kilby and DJ Impulse will be set up in a half-city block of open space by the corner of West Lexington and Park. Kilby said his projection will be about the size of a movie theater screen on the side of the former Stewart’s Department Store.

“I can program some things ahead of time. Certain colors will work better with different artists,” Kilby said. “It’s a lot of improvisation. It’s very much like DJing or performing live instruments.”

The event is hosted by the city and local artist Whitney Frazier of WGF Studio.

“How do you tell the story of Baltimore in an authentic way that not only celebrates the history but also thinks about moving forward?” Frazier said. “Graffiti is a legit amazing art form.”

Featured artists include Gaia, Pablo Machioli, Bryan Robinson, Wendell Shannon and Stab.

The event is at the Superblock, a once-busy retail district bound by West Lexington, North Howard and West Fayette streets and Park. In 2020, the city sold more than a dozen properties on the block for $4.5 million to a team of four firms to be redeveloped. Last month, one of the four firms, Mayson-Dixon Properties & Development, which had a 5% stake, filed to liquidate two of its subsidiaries in bankruptcy court following multiple lawsuits over mismanagement as the site still sits mostly vacant.

Stab said he sees Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood, which has a thriving graffiti and street art scene, as a model for breathing life into vacant space through street art, and Thursday’s city-sponsored graffiti show could be an important first step in growing and improving the local scene.

“Baltimore suffers from having a lack of higher-end graffiti, so that’s what the kids here see and want to do. They see the low end,” Stab said. “But if we can create an environment with art that makes you stop and say, ‘Wow,’ if we can create an entire Superblock full of real street art, Baltimore street art can get to a whole other level.”

The event is part of International Placemaking Week, a global gathering that unites urban planners, designers, community leaders, and residents to exchange best practices and innovative strategies for turning public spaces into vibrant, inclusive environments.