Super Eco

Photo credit: mrsmullerauh, flickr

Paul Curtis, known as "Moose," is a very private person who creates public art. "Moose" is a reverse graffiti artist. Reverse graffiti, also known as "eco-tagging," is a medium much like graffiti involving graphic presentation of images on publicly visible, often privately owned surfaces such as exterior walls, trains, highway abutments and other structures. Instead of applying paint to create the image, however, a reverse graffito is created by cleaning, by removing dirt, soot, paint, old graffiti and such.

Moose stylizes himself as "Professor of Dirt." In the spring of 2008, he collaborated with Zeroh Design Ltd, and Doug Pray to create and film a long mural in the Broadway tunnel in San Francisco. The effort was sponsored by Green*Works, makers of an organic, natural cleaning product that Moose used as he revealed his art by removing the dirt with a power washer.

Moose runs an eco-marketing firm, Symbollix. Symbollix' work is intentionally transgressive, yet positive in its message and effect. They declare, "The marks we make are temporary and do no damage to anything or anybody." Yet, Moose has run afoul of the law. In Leeds, in 2004, the city council demanded he clean-up a piece of graffiti promoting Smirnoff Vodka in a gloomy underpass. The British crown prosecution service says he may be in breach of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act, hence his low profile. Not everybody appreciates the work of Moose or the eco-taggers he has inspired. Graffiti artists contribute color to the urban landscape, but they do it with toxic paint. Eco-taggers eschew the spray cans with their VOCs, preferring to work with natural materials such as water, mud and moss.

While Moose works mostly at night under the cloak of anonymity preferred by taggers and eco-taggers alike, he can be reached through his firm's web site, where galleries of his work are also presented.

Notable Eco Activity

Paul Curtis is one of the earliest eco-taggers, and the inventor of reverse graffiti. He's famous for leaving places cleaner than he found them. He has been working on a wall in Brighton for the last two years that will be fully cleaned by the time he has finished his reverse graffiti work.

• Paul "Moose" Curtis Details

  • Birth Date

    1966

  • Born In

    United Kingdom

  • Home Page

    Unavailable

  • Lives In

    United Kingdom

  • Organizations

    Unavailable

  • Occupation

    Graffiti Artist