Exploring the night with Montreal street artists

Montreal-bred graffiti artist Bosnyis standing on a rooftop with the rest of his crew.

It's pitch black out and the fumes of the spray paint are getting to their heads.

Known as XL, thecollective of artists ispainting a six-metre wide by two-metre high piece, standing on their tiptoes or on each other's shoulders to reach the highest point.

"We were interested in doing large scale works illegally,"Bosny saysafter his crew disperses.

"We would spend a lot of time during the day looking at rooftops and accessibility."

The next day, commuters walk past XL's freshly painted piece, either unaware of the change in the streetscape or delighted by the sight of the addition to the urban gallery on their way to work.

Bosnyis the artist name thisConcordiaUniversity Fine Arts student uses in his street graffiti. He has asked that his real name not be used because of the nature of his work.

Graffiti is an ephemeral form of expression, and Bosny'sfreshpiece might be removed by the city in a few days, or it might be preserved for months or years.

"Graffiti is something you see every day. We know it's an effective means of communication," Bosny says.

"Whether it's functional or useful is debatable, but it works."

In recent years, there's been a growing interestingraffiti in muralform in Montreal. The city is investing more money into decorating its brick walls.

This year will markthe fourth installment of Mural Festival a two week festival during which artists from different parts of the world paint the alleyways around The Main and the 20th anniversary of Under Pressure Festival, an urban art event.

But other forms of street art hold a less-esteemed position in the minds of thegeneral public.

Tags, burners, throw-ups, murals, stencils, and wheat pastes they're just some of the many types of guerilla urban art that can be found around the city.

Beauty and the streets

MissTeriis another graffiti artist with a personal mission to bring beauty to the streets.

Her romantic take on the graffiti style is informed by the Rococo period.

She describes her style as expressive, juicy and feminine.

"It has to be beautiful.It has to catch your eye," she said.

In her most recent work, MissTerihas been depicting the figure of the Rococo woman long curly hair draped over afluffy, multi-layered pastel dress on decaying brick walls around the city.

"I like to mix things that are grim with things that are romantic," said MissTeri.

"That came with my experience of being a woman that's really girly, but really tomboy at the same time."

The countless murals around the island have earnedMontreal a reputation as a young and vibrant city, but a more clandestine artistic expression exists beyond the limits of the most famous murals of Saint-Laurent Boulevard.

BothBosnyand MissTerihave taken their artto the streets and transformed pieces into works displayed atpublic galleries.

Visibility and perception

Once the average 9-to-5 worker has settled down for the night in a suburban triplex, Bosny quietly gets ready for a night mission.

Under the moonlight,adrenaline starts pumping through his veins as he selects the colours for his piece and chooses a spot.

Visibilityis the most appealing aspect of graffiti, Bosny explained.

"The fact that I can do something, have it travel and be seen by people along the way is very powerful for a 13-year-old," he said,reminiscing about his first tag.

While graffiti is created in the street, it's presence is much stronger and enduringonline,Bosny says.

"I'm examining vision and perception and the viewer's relationship to a piece."

To play with this contradiction, he began introducing a "glitch" in his visual vocabulary.

By overlaying or doubling the image on the wall itself or later in Photoshop, the image looks as if it has not downloaded properly on a mobile device.

"Images of art aren't always true to what's being shown," said Bosny.

"Confusing my viewers, making them unsure where the transformations occur, that makes me happy."

MTL After Darkis a collaboration between the Department of Journalism at Concordia University and CBC Montreal.

• About the journalists

Undergraduate students and graduate-diploma students in a graduate-level multimedia course found and produced original stories onthe theme of Montreal after dark.

Working in small teams, they spent the winter semester developingtheir stories in text, audio, video, photography, infographics, and maps.

• Explore all of the stories in the series