Young Brunette Girl In Front Of The Graffiti Wall

This period also saw the emergence of the new stencil graffiti genre. Some of the first examples were created ca 1981 by graffiti artist Blek le Rat in Paris; by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis.
Graffiti as a memorial
People often leave their traces in wet cement or concrete. This type of graffiti often commemorates the mutual commitment of a couple, or simply records a person's presence at a particular moment. Often this type of graffiti is dated and is left untouched for decades, offering a look into local historical minutiae.