As big fans of street art, photographer Mattie Kannard has certainly convinced us that graffiti removal is a pretty fantastic thing as well. The New Mexico native has been documenting “buffed” walls – the term for ‘painting over graffiti’ – since 2009. She’s accumulated close to two hundred pictures since then, filed in her Flickr album Paint Over, and we can’t help but be reminded of Mark Rothko or Yves Klein’s works while scrolling through them.
The irony that these hastily-painted patches meant to suppress creativity become artworks themselves isn’t lost on us, and it even makes us smile. So that’s one point for the street artists, zero for the angry building owners. See more of Kannard’s work here and on Instagram.
