Losop Visits Koonung Secondary College

Term: 3 Year: 2017

Michael Duncan or LOSOP (his street name), a Melbourne based artist, visited Koonung Secondary College to educate Year 9 Art students about the world of stencil and street artistry.

Duncan gave a very detailed story about his life in the street art industry. He started out only creating stencils, though is now moving back to the basics of art because he felt he had almost lost the desire to create stencil art. 

In 2015, Duncan was named a finalist in the 2015 Stencil Art Prize in Sydney, where he displayed his work with 90 other finalists from 21 countries, in what can be considered the world’s biggest and most significant annual stencil exhibition.

Duncan told the Year 9s about how he was a part of The Paterson Project, which allowed street artists to come together as a community and paint together while supporting the Royal Children’s Hospital. During The Paterson Project the artists were given an area of the building to paint. Two A3 sized boards were attached to each area and included in the artists’ paintings. These boards were removed before the building was demolished. The panels went up for auction, with all proceeds going to the Royal Children’s Hospital. Over 5,000 people came to view the artworks and raised over $49,000. 

Students were then treated to 90 minutes of creating a stencil of their own. Duncan had laid out various images of well-known people and characters for the class to cut out with a stencil knife and then spray paint onto paper. They were taught how to effectively cut out a stencil and spraying techniques such as spitting, edge effect, shadowing, blending of colours and creating interesting backgrounds.

The Stencil Art incursion tied in beautifully with our current studies of Street Art and designing and developing a stencil. It was a great experience to have Michael Duncan be part of the Art class and provide so much valuable information to the students. 
If you would like to read and see more about Losop and his stencil work please take a look at his website.
https://www.losopstencils.com.au

Helen Briffa 
Visual Art Teacher
Koonung Secondary College