Integrated Chemical Mapping and Analytical Pyrolysis for Tracking the Evolution of Street Art Material

The chemical investigation of modern art materials and synthetic paint materials has been a major focus of research in cultural heritage science over the past decade. Since the 1970s, street art has become an influential cultural movement with significant artistic and social impact in modern cities, and the conservation of relevant artworks related to urban neo-muralism has been increasingly recognized. Understanding these materials is critical to developing conservation strategies, as their composition continues to change with industrial innovation and regulatory changes. This study presents the application of an analytical approach that integrates chemical mapping based on spectroscopic approaches together with analytical pyrolysis, chromatography, and mass spectrometry to investigate two key case studies and provide insights into the evolution of street art materials over the past 30 years. This comprehensive approach provides a deeper understanding of the composition and transformation of urban art materials over time, overcoming the limitations of individual methods and revealing both organic and inorganic materials. This combined approach represents the state of the art in the study of synthetic paints used in modern art and provides new insights into the evolution of the formulation of materials used by street artists.