Tape Art – The Art of Canvas Painting With Tape

Creative people love to innovate and experiment with unique materials as potential art mediums, such as art tape paintings. Tape art can be produced with any type of tape, such as packing, duct, or adhesive tape, and one can create anything from a wall mural to an abstract painting with tape. There are many masking tape art ideas that can make your art distinct and exciting. Let’s find out more about Tape art history, who makes paintings with tape, and explore a few art tape ideas!

Everything You Want to Know About Tape Art

Tape painting originally arose in the 1960s as a type of urban art that served as an alternative to spray can graffiti. When art tape is applied to plastic or glass and illuminated from behind, it can create an effect comparable to stained glass. As an artist, you can choose to make a canvas painting with tape, as well as designs or outlines on urban walls. There are even masking tape artists, such as Mark Jenkins, that prefer to make three-dimensional sculptures.

Washi tape on PVC plate (2020) by Tape That; Tape That, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The History of Tape Art

Although there were a few conceptual artists in the 1960s who used tape in their artworks, it is not comparable to the Tape paintings produced today. Some artists, such as those in the Fluxus movement were known to incorporate unusual materials, including tape, and others used it in their collage work, such as Robert Rauschenberg. Tape art as a movement would only arise a few decades later, towards the end of the 1980s. It was in 1989, In Providence,  Rhode Island, that a collective emerged that produced large collaborative paintings with tape in public spaces. Dubbed the “Tape Art Crew”, they have continuously developed the medium, producing over 500 Tape paintings in public spaces over the last three decades.

Emerging in the late 1980s, the crew would make nightly missions around Rhode Island, creating paintings with tape on abandoned buildings and public spaces such as courtyards and sidewalks.

The first of these masking tape artworks typically featured scenes of various vehicles crashing, such as trains and chariots which were produced in the silhouette style of the outlines one would find at a crime scene. These Tape paintings would often cover several surfaces at once, with a mural starting on a wall, and extending to the street or roof. These were temporary installations that would appear for around 24 hours before being removed to make way for the next collaborative effort.

The temporary nature of Tape art, as well as the collaborative spirit and large scale of the works, would become the defining trademarks of the movement. The 16th of September, 1989, was the date that the movement produced its first collaborative piece. Not satisfied with creating within the limits of Rhode Island, the collective would eventually embark on a tour that would take to 40 states in 6 months, with an accumulative 29,000 miles covered in the journey. This went a long way to prove the capacity for Tape art to be a viable art form to decorate public spaces and urban environments, including children’s schools and hospitals, and even psychiatric facilities.

Abstract tape art wave (2014) by TAPE OVER in Trouville, France; Whatabouttruth, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

In the year 2000, the company that produced the crew’s preferred art tape stopped making the product. For the next two years, the crew searched for a replacement tape, testing every new tape that appeared on the market, and eventually found their perfect art tape in Tennessee in 2001. From 2001 until 2006, the crew was engaged in a guerilla-style project that would result in a massive art mural that featured the likenesses of every single airline passenger and fireman that perished in the September 11th attacks.

From 2010 to 2015, the movement began to receive public recognition, with large corporations attending their collaborative Tape art workshops, and museums seeking to sponsor their public works and curate Tape paintings in their galleries.

After the chaos of the pandemic subsided, the collective was determined to try and spread their love for Tape painting as far as possible. They have also tried to make it easier for other people to create their own Tape artwork by manufacturing and selling hand-held projectors specifically made to help with Tape art projects.

The Characteristics of Tape Art

The advantage of tape painting is that it can be produced silently and very quickly, which makes it the perfect medium for temporary or smaller urban projects. It is also safe to use and non-toxic, and you do not require any covering or facial masks to create paintings with tape. As with any medium, it takes some time to perfect the skill of creating Tape art, but once you start to work with art tape, you realize that it can be easy to work with and can be used on a multitude of surfaces, such as wood, asphalt, stone, glass panels, and aluminum. Paintings with tape can be produced both outside or indoors, and unlike graffiti, can easily be removed without much trace of their existence.

Although Tape artists are known to use a variety of available kinds of tape, there is also specialty artist tape for canvases and other applications.

Famous Tape Artists

Through the years there have also been individuals who have incorporated Art tape in their works who did not necessarily belong to any movement. Due to its versatile nature, Art tape has found its way into many projects and art pieces. Some artists use it as the principal medium, while others use it in combination with other materials. Let us discover a few of the most notable artists that have produced Tape paintings and even sculptures over the decades.

Berlin Starry Night (2014) by tape artist Slava Ostap, made out of colored duct tape; Slava Ostap, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Mark Khaisman (1958 – Present)

Mark Khaisman is an artist from Ukraine who now works and lives in Pennsylvania after moving to the United States in 1989. Khaisman makes his Tape art by layering translucent packing tape over clear, Plexiglas panels to create zones of light and shadow that, when combined and lit from the back, form depictions of identifiable individuals or objects. His inspiration has come from a variety of sources, including art history, 20th-century propagandist art, vintage films, and his own photography. When he observed a tape-covered stained glass piece in progress and noticed the beauty in the patterns created by the tape, he was motivated to create works with packing tape.

Since 2005, his artwork has been displayed in a multitude of galleries, most of which are in Philadelphia or neighboring areas of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Chair 14 (2015) by Mark Khaisman; Whatabouttruth, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Mark Jenkins (1970 – Present)

The American artist, Mark Jenkins, is most well-known for his sculptural street art installations. For Jenkins, the street is a stage, and passersby often become unwitting actors in the scenes he creates in which his sculptures interact with their surroundings. These installations have been known to not only draw the attention of the general public but on many occasions, the police too. Jenkins’ work has been characterized as situationist art that is both shocking and whimsical. Currently residing in Washington D.C., he also holds regular workshops in which he teaches others his installation and sculptural techniques. Born in the city of Alexandria in Virginia in 1970, it would only be in 2003 when residing in Rio de Janeiro that he started to experiment with tape as a potential sculptural casting medium.

He found that he could make casts of anything – himself included – by simply wrapping the tape inside out over an object and then sealing it after.

It would be in the streets of Rio de Janeiro that the artist would test out his first tape-cast sculptures, and he soon realized that it was the reaction of the people that transformed the pieces from mere art installations into a kind of artistic social experiment. He would move back to Washington D.C in 2004, whereupon he began to collaborate with Sandra Fernandez on a series of toy babies cast from clear tape that were installed in various cities in a manner that made them interact with their environment, known as the Storker Project. For instance, a giraffe cast from clear tape can be seen trying to eat a plastic bag stuck in a tree in one example, and a baby tugging at a leaning bus signpost with a rope, giving the impression that it was pulling the sign down.

Embed Series #1 Installation (2006)  by Mark Jenkins; Artist: Mark JenkinsPhotographer: Mark Jenkins (same person), CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

With his Embed Series (2006), Jenkins proceeded to make life-like portraits of Fernandez and himself by filling tape-cast sculptures with cement and newspaper and then dressing them up. These works were so life-like that there were several occasions when police were called in by passersby who thought that there was something wrong with the sculptures, as the people seemed frozen in time. There was another such incident as recently as November 2022, when police broke down the doors of a gallery in an attempt to rescue a woman who seemed to have passed out head-first in a bowl of soup. However, it turned out to be a sculpture that Jenkins had made of the gallery owner’s sister.

Slava Ostap (1978 – Present)

Ukrainian artist Slava Ostap creates a distinct kind of Tape art using duct tape on acrylic glass. Ostap is also known for his installation artworks and his live art performances. Born in the fourth largest city in Ukraine, Dnipropetrovsk, he initially studied to become an architect. In the mid-1990s he moved to Germany, eventually residing in Berlin, where since 2013, he has been actively working in Berlin’s urban art scene. He first discovered Tape art in 2007 and has created art pieces with it ever since.

Due to his creative impulse for exploring new mediums, he has also incorporated Tape art into his street art pieces.

Feel (2014) by Slava Ostap; Slava Ostap, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

His influences range from classic artists such as Van Gogh to modern Pop artists such as Andy Warhol. Religion, sex, society, politics, and pop culture are also influential in his work. As opposed to tag graffiti, he prefers to create urban street art that highlights these various influences or to try and spread a message of positivity to the general public. Yet, not all of his works contain a deeper message, he also likes to try his hand at abstract painting with tape. While a street artist at heart, his works have also been featured in many galleries and art projects.

Max Zorn (1982 – Present)

Dutch artist Max Zorn has been part of the urban art scene since 2011. His stained-glass-like style is the result of placing packing tape over an acrylic glass and then cutting out the shapes. Once the piece is illuminated from behind the image becomes clear. It all began back in 2011 when he posted a two-minute YouTube video in which he explains how he creates his Tape art on the street lamps in the area. Both the local and international media picked up his story and just over a year later he had already produced another 150 Tape artworks.

From there, his fame grew, with his debut solo exhibition held in 2012 in a vintage ballroom located in Paris’ downtown district.

The Sovereign Art Foundation asked to feature his live performance at Art Basel Hong Kong the same year, as well as one of his artworks, which was subsequently sold as a unique original for a figure that doubled the value of the artwork. The themes of his works are influenced by a combination of nostalgia, history, classic books, and film noir, producing a range of sepia tones when lit from behind.

Tape art image of Girl with a Pearl Earring made by Max Zorn (2011), using brown packing tape on acrylic glass; Max Zorn, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Zorn’s love for American cityscapes originated as a child when the New York City skyline was the theme of the wallpaper in his bedroom. He also derives influence from certain characters in literature created by authors like John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, and Tom Wolfe.

His artwork is also informed by American realism painters such as Edward Hopper, yet Zorn’s approach seldom uses picture references and the majority of his pieces are created entirely from scratch.

Zorn is the creator and developer of the Stick Together project, a free internet site used for spreading street art throughout the world. Fans throughout the world have put his artwork on street lamps through his initiative Stick Together, with large-scale artworks posted in several window panes in venues such as Amsterdam’s coffeeshop De Dampkring. Zorn’s art has been displayed all across the world through this project, including places like Canada, Hong Kong, and Key West.

Making Your Own Tape Art

Now it is time to look at some masking tape art ideas and techniques. This way, you can begin to make your own Tape artwork! The first thing you will need is, of course, tape! While there are brands of artist tape for canvas, you do not necessarily have to use art tape. Masking tape artworks are just as good as any, you just have to make sure that the tape you choose can rip easily while leaving behind a clean cut, and make sure it is flexible (mid-strength is recommended).

• The first step is making sure you have all the necessary tools and materials for the project. You will need your tape, a ruler, a cutting knife, and a piece of cardboard. You will also need access to a printer – if you do not own one at home, there are many stores that offer this service, as well as libraries.
• Find a suitable image for the project. This step comes down to personal choice. You can choose whichever image best suits your intended project. It can be an image of a pet, a celebrity, or even a landscape, it is up to you.
• Use software to quantize the image. This step will require the use of a program such as Adobe Photoshop, although there are also many free apps that will allow you to do the same thing. You want to quantize the image, which will essentially break the image up into separate color sections. Try a few variations of color combinations and print out your favorite three which will be used for referencing and cutting.

Installation Glow (2019) by Tape That artists Adrian Dittert and Cedric Goussanou, located in Tapei as part of the That’s Tape Art exhibition; Tape That, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

• Create your base color by sticking white duct tape onto the cardboard. You want to start right in the middle and radiate outward towards the sides of the cardboard. Try to ensure that you have an evenly distributed amount of layers on either side. Now you can use your cutting knife or scissors to trim along the edges.
• Now choose which color you want to use for your next layer. We can now start to put down the next layer of color. The secret to this step is to first turn the canvas to a 90-degree angle before you start to apply the tape. This will make it easier to separate the layers later without removing the layer underneath as the strips are not facing the same direction.
• Now line up your printed image with the cardboard and use tape to fix it to the sides of the cardboard. Now you will take your knife and start cutting along the lines of your image. You will need to apply some pressure on the knife, so make sure to keep it steady and under control. Now you can remove the remainder of the template: you should be left with a single color of tape with lines cut all over the surface.
• Now the peeling of the tape begins. This part requires the most concentration. Make sure that you have a spare copy of the original image to refer to as you begin to peel away at the lines on the tape. This time, rotate the canvas a further 45 degrees so that the underlying layers don’t lift up when you peel off the top layer. Keep your cutting knife handy for those tricky corners that might not have been cut properly the first time.

Once all the pieces that were cut from the top layer have been removed, you will be left with an impression of the image in your picture. Don’t stress if it doesn’t come out perfectly the very first time – it is easy to accidentally remove the wrong piece or too many layers of tape. Now you can frame your Tape artwork and show it off to loved ones!

Whether making a canvas painting with tape or using a wall or cardboard, making your own masking tape artwork is both easy and fun. While still a relatively new art form, it has proven to have many applications, like the decoration of public buildings and private institutions such as psychiatric facilities and schools. It is also a great medium for displaying temporary work in public spaces. With so many masking tape art ideas to choose from, why not get “stuck into it” yourself?

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Tape Art?

Tape art is a type of street art in which designs and images are created on streets, walls, and other surfaces using adhesive tape. Some artists use specifically produced art tape, such as artist tape for canvas, however, any tape that is flexible can be utilized. You can use duct tape, packing tape, or masking tape for instance. There are many tutorials online which offer various masking tape art ideas.

What Subjects Are Featured in Tape Paintings?

There is no real limit as to what can be used as potential subject matter in Tape art. There are collectives and artists who use the public nature of these works as a platform to highlight certain issues that concern them. Yet, there are also those that choose to make an abstract painting with tape that has no intrinsic message but purely serves an aesthetic function. Ultimately, Tape art is a style that incorporates a very broad range of topics and subjects.

Jordan Anthony( Content Editor, Art Writer, Photographer )

Jordan Anthony is a Cape Town-based film photographer, curator, and arts writer. She holds a Bachelor of Art in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, where she explored themes like healing, identity, dreams, and intuitive creation in her Contemporary art practice. Jordan has collaborated with various local art institutions, including the KZNSA Gallery in Durban, the Turbine Art Fair, and the Wits Art Museum. Her photography focuses on abstract color manipulations, portraiture, candid shots, and urban landscapes. She’s intrigued by philosophy, memory, and esotericism, drawing inspiration from Surrealism, Fluxus, and ancient civilizations, as well as childhood influences and found objects. Jordan is working for artfilemagazine since 2022 and writes blog posts about art history and photography.

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