BUSINESSES in Newport are getting a colourful makeover by the city’s answer to a well-known graffiti artist from the other side of the river Severn.

Banksy and Bristol have become synonymous with each other, but now businesses in the city have begun to take notice of artist Goes, as his work is tagged, and are commissioning him to decorate their premises.

But ask Goes who inspires him, and it is not the Bristol native, but German-based Dane, who uses blocks to create a 3D effect.

Goes started out using walls and trains as canvases but now hopes to make a career out of graffiti. He has a background in tattooing but gave that up due to a lack of work.

Around ten years ago he was handed a spray can by a friend and hasn’t looked back.

Like many budding graffiti artists, Goes started out by spraying on walls and trains for the first two years.

The 33-year-old said: “With trains, you haven’t got the public next to you and there’s a big, blank canvas but it’s dangerous and if the transport police catch you, they throw the book at you.”

Now he has moved on to doing commissioned pieces – he gets requests from businesses to do interior and exterior pieces on their buildings, but there are also popular culture stencils throughout the city, some of which have graced the Argus picture of the day, including a piece depicting Barack Obama as the Joker from Batman, pictured.

The 200 Club on Stow Hill and the Volkswagen garage in Crindau have both had pieces done by Goes, while his friend, Boyla, has sprayed a piece on Sy’s Barbers by the market. Goes hopes graffiti can give him a career in the future.

His work is a mixture of stencil and freehand and Goes says graffiti can be a great way to get youngsters involved in art and is something they find appealing.

Goes says he would like to see Newport council offer spaces in the city to proper graffiti artists so they can brighten up the area, but his approaches have been rebuffed.

“I’d like to see Newport turned into a cultural city like Bristol – walls where people can paint something artistic, but it’s all dated.

“I haven’t got time for people scrawling on walls, people then put me in that bracket and I get accused of that when I’m doing more artistic work,” he said.

Needless to say, Goes views graffiti as art, when done properly and skillfully, and says his favourite piece is a mural dedicated to John Sicolo, which adorns the walls of the 200 Club.

... Or is it just vandalism?

ART or vandalism, which category does graffiti fall into?

Ever since its emergence from New York in the 1970s and 80s to the modern day, it has divided opinion on whether it is a legitimate art form or just a nuisance.

Newport City Council’s Pride in Newport team proactively removes graffiti from council buildings and street furniture, but not from private property unless it is offensive, abusive or threatening.

It also works in partnership with the Probation Service for the removal of graffiti from private properties with the consent of the owners.

Graffiti would only be regarded as art if it had been created with the permission of owners of the building or site, said a council spokesman.