Graffiti Art - By: Guy Parker

Manchester: home to attitude, style, alternative thinking and creativity. Also home too many works of graffiti art pictures. Unless you walk round the city centre with your eyes shut, you can't fail to notice how graffiti art pictures transforms some of the most sterile spaces, even if it does come with negative connotations that are slowly beginning to change. With the abundance of weird festivals this city hosts each year, graffiti art pictures are becoming well respected and accepted. One Manchester resident with a passion for graffiti is Paul J Goulden. Over the years, Paul has built up a stock-pile of iconic photography of his favourite graffiti pieces in the Manchester city centre. For Paul, graffiti art pictures are the ultimate in art. A passion so strong that artists continue even with the knowledge that their piece of work is likely to be removed, often in just a few days. The stories behind the graffiti are pictures are gems in themselves. Most of the graffiti in the Northern Quarter is done by people who live there, almost as a mark of territory. Paul takes his camera with him everywhere he goes and has been known to jump off buses before after seeing something that catches his eye. The unveiling of the Banksy piece last month made Paul chuckle as he had photographed it ten years earlier; "I think it's too late for a lot of Banksy's work in Manchester. It was covered over or removed before Banksy became the name that he is. I loved his work as soon as I saw it many years ago and captured it fresh, before it was covered and Banksy is who he is now."

Paul's back catalogue of work has been kept private for some time but now he's launching his first exhibition stands at the newly opened Manchester Photographic Gallery in the Northern Quarter. One of his most stark and emotional capturings was a photograph taken from the top of Tib Street car park. Paul by chance happened to be leaning over the side of the top floor, looking for photographic inspiration and spotted a child's doll on top of the toilet cubicle surrounded by used syringes. Many residents of Manchester will have spotted the fantastic pieces of work on many of the independent bars and restaurants roller shutters in the city centre, mostly in the Northern Quarter. To Paul, these pieces symbolise the diversity in Manchester; "It's amazing to just sit in Piccadilly Gardens and watch people of all nationalities come together. The characters and colours - it makes for an interesting place to live." This is a photographer who's produced some breath-taking shots from being an opportunist and knowing the city well. Being in the right place at the right time and being bothered to jump off a bus just to get one shot or get up at the crack of dawn to photograph the sunrise. "All graffiti art pictures says something, even if it's subliminal. For example, the one from Stevenson's Square with the three heads. If that doesn't scream depression then I don't know what does."

The first ever exhibition of Paul's work will be launched at the newly opened Manchester Photographic Gallery from June 29th.

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