https://apictureofpolitics.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/223/

The picture itself is a street painting of what looks like a depressed artist holding painting materials, who just painted a sign saying “CANCELLED” over the words “follow your dreams”. The format that this image takes is a photograph (JPG) of a street painting. The artist responsible for creating this particular painting is the widely renowned, pseudonymous artist and political activist who goes by the name Banksy. Personally, I think that the primary intention of this street painting was to draw attention to societies’ tendency to discourage people from pursuing their aspirations. Often times contemporary society sways young kids away from following their passions in life and instead encourages them to get “real jobs”. I think that Banksy’s chief goal was to bring this issue of the world oppressing peoples’ genuine ambitions to light. The painting appeared in May of 2010 within the underprivileged, Chinatown region of Boston, Massachusetts. In addition, the image of the actual painting is not pixelated and actually captures the quality of it precisely. Despite the fact that it is just a photograph of the actual work, it still accurately preserves the image in high definition. Adding on, the dimensions of the actual painting itself is right around five to six feet in both width and height. However, this particular photograph of Banksy’s work is 49.76 KB in terms of its’ size. I undoubtedly think that this painting was created in more of a modern context in order to really reach out and speak to the people of this present-day in age. As soon as we were assigned this mini-essay/macro-hack I knew immediately that I wanted to do a street painting by Banksy. When it came down to choosing which one of his works I was going to dial in on, I Google-searched “contemporary Banksy” due to the fact that I wanted an image that sort of spoke to the people in a modern fashion. Finally, I chose this image not because I simply thought it looked intriguing or physically appealing, but for two of the following reasons. First, I consider myself to be a definite advocate of Banksy and the messages that he strives to emit through his artwork. Second, I personally stand behind the belief that one of societies’ most damaging characteristics is its’ tendency to oppress and objectify individuals who pursue their true aspirations. I believe that this particular painting, epitomizes and displays the severity of this issue and acts as a sort of call to action directed towards humanity as a whole to put an end to this destructive trend.