Not Safe For Work Warning: Dear people reading this in the workplace, I would guess that neither this intro nor this interview are appropriate to read in most workplaces. Also, if you’re my grandparents, the intro and the interview are probably not appropriate to read anywhere. Continue reading “Tim Hans shoots… Don Pablo Pedro”
ChrisRWK is an artist whose work I’ve followed pretty much since I got interested in street art. He has a strong cult following of fans who love how his work brings joy, and he’s probably one of the go-to artists that people getting started in stickers look to. Chris is the latest artist in the space across the street from Woodward Gallery and he and Veng recently painted a wall in Little Italy for The L.I.S.A. Project (for which I am a co-curator). And then I read this interview and found out that’s he and Veng are doing a print with 1xRun, whom I’ve worked with as well. Basically. All in all, seemed like a great time to ask Chris a few questions…
RJ: What do you look for when you’re thinking about collaborating with another artist?
Chris: Over the years I’ve learned a lot from Collabing with artists. I remember asking artists if they would like to collab back in the day and people had no clue what I meant. Mainly cause no one was doing it on stickers. I had collabed with artists for years on murals and artists have collabed on canvases for years. Some that always struck a chord with me was the Basquiat, Warhol and Clemente canvases. So I figured bring it to stickers. I had been making stickers for years and they’ve always been a favorite medium of mine. From collecting to making, I always loved em. So with some artists I know to just do some hand drawn ones but with other artists I do printed ones. Some artists like El Toro, Bob Will Reign, Under Water Pirates I’ve collabed with for years, since around 2004. With guys like them I always love doing hand drawn ones because of the diversity. They would always do something new. Artists like Royce, MCA/Evil Design, Flying Fortress I’ve done both hand drawn and printed. Printed because of the strength and iconographic imagery.
RJ: Why are stickers an important part of street art and graffiti?
Chris: Stickers have been in graffiti for years but people never paid attention to them. I remember seeing ones with tags on them in the early 90’s when I’d go into Manhattan. In the late 90’s stickers started gaining popularity overseas from what I saw. In 2001 when kevin and I launched robotswillkill.com, stickers were starting to catch on in the US as its own scene. I remember when PEEL magazine contacted me about doing the cover for their first issue. I was amped, a zine all about stickers?!? And I was doing the cover?!? That was in 2003. In the past few years the Graff scene has rediscovered stickers and seems like their appreciation has grown for them. For years it was like they looked down on them. The sticker scene itself has grown over the past few years which is good and bad. You have tons of “artists” who just collect them and use the ones they get to trade up. It’s the baseball card theory, well for this generation maybe the Pokemon card theory. Don’t get me wrong – collecting is cool, but to an extent.
RJ: About how many stickers do you draw or print each year?
Chris: Print I’d say 15-20 thousand. That’s mainly for trades, giveaways etc. I always liked putting up hand drawns. Printed are great for putting up because of longevity and ability to grill an area but there’s something about finding an original on the street. So hand drawn ones I’d say around 10-15 thousand. It’s tough to say cause I just sit down and throw on a movie and do em until the packs empty or the movie is over. So that could be a hundred or couple hundred in a sitting. Also depends on what style I’m doing. If they are black line ones then those I fly threw. If I’m doing color fills, shading etc it’ll be less.
RJ: A lot of your recent paintings feature your trademark characters less prominently than your work has previously. Where are they going? Where are you going?
Chris: Well I’ve always had an array of characters but the Robot always caught everyone’s attention. He became the icon for the stickers, clothes etc. I did him on paintings for years also. The boy and girl characters have gained more recognition in the past few years. Between the murals and canvases I can have them convey more emotion or tell more if a narrative. It’s funny because for years when I’d paint something everyone would say, “Are you doing the robot? I hope you do the robot!” So I did the robot. Nowadays people don’t say that because they’ve become familiar with the rest of my work. Granted when I sign black books, do stickers etc I do the robot. The newer work has subconsciously become more autobiographical. When I was talking to a friend of mine, he made that remark. So I started to think about it and he’s right on some levels. For example Veng and I did a show at Low Brow Artique called “From the Start: a collection of studies” and when I chose my 5 study subjects, they all had a deep connection to me and my life. So for the newer works, I try to tap into that more.
RJ: How was it painting your version of the Mona Lisa in Little Italy?
Chris: To be honest, tough at first. When Wayne from The L.I.S.A Project mentioned it I automatically thought ok time to paint a Mona Lisa. For some reason it didn’t dawn on me right away to do it in my style. I just figured paint Mona Lisa. So after a few sketches I did my style. Wayne showed it to the owners and they loved it. I showed it to Veng and he knew exactly what he wanted to do. This was the perfect project for him to bring back his circles. We put together the sketch fully and it was def meant for the spot. The L.I.S.A Project has a great thing going. It’s funny too because my best friends Godfather ran the restaurant where we painted for years.
RJ: You’re pretty popular on Instagram. What do you think Instagram has done for street art or stickering?
Chris: Things like Instagram have definitely brought more attention to things like street art and stickers. It’s quick and has its own scene. Once you mix things that have their own subculture it’ll only help promote each other. Blogs and stuff helped promote street art for years but were mainly constrained to desktop computers etc so with something like Instagram you have it right on your phone at any moment of the day. People love instant gratification. And to be able to post something from anywhere in the world for anyone in the world to see is amazing.
RJ: Have you got any upcoming projects that you can let us in on?
Chris: I just finished up 4 panels for the Woodward Project space across from the gallery. It’s titled “Those Summer Daze”. Veng and I have a print coming out with 1xRun soon. I’m involved in Sticky Situation NYC by Ink Monstr. I’m working on inventory pieces for Dorian Grey gallery. I’ll be painting at Jersey Fresh Jam. I also have a two man show coming up at Mighty Tanaka with Michael Banks(Sugar Fueled) this October. Oh and also finishing up issue #3 of Surface Area zine. Of course there’ll be some other outdoor art going on.
Photos by ChrisRWK
Robbie Conal was one of the first artists that Tim Hans met up with for his series of portraits of artists, and Robbie suggested that Tim also photograph MearOne. Since I am mostly aware of MearOne’s work through Robbie, we asked Robbie to interview MearOne for us. – RJ
Robbie Conal: I know Mear One as a whirling dervish. Painting, drawing, piecing, print making, poster production, T shirt lines, stickers and everything else I forgot to list. Always up to making and thinking about more things than I can even get my mind around. (In fact, after writing those 3 sentences—conjuring the Mearski—I think I need a nap.) So….I figure you must be hooked into world history and current events, like you have a social media I.V. drip going directly into your brain 24/7. Or, perhaps you even consume information the good old, old fashioned way…like, have you read any good books, lately?
MearOne: I haven’t found the time to read any books this past year but the years prior I was on a bit of a reading binge. I studied world history and human psychology from the writings of philosophers like Richard Tarnas, Robert Anton Wilson, Ken Wilber, and I enjoy reference books that explore the mind and place of humanity in reality. I have always enjoyed cryptic Scientific, Philosophical, and Spiritual literature from the late 1880’s through the 1940’s. My family has roots in Art, Music, Astro Physics, and this seems to be a very interesting time in the subject matter that inspires me. I enjoy Anthropology and Archeology too – as an artist I can find an endless story to create and build upon, one you don’t find in traditional public school teachings.
RC: Of course I’m interested in your reception habits and preferred sources of information, but I want to ask you about your big pieces about big subjects—you make more of them than pretty much any street artist I know. How do you choose a subject to do a big “piece” about—like not necessarily doing a commission, but something more on your own.
M: For the work I create, my personal views and understanding of politics and humanity are worked into a extreme story that I can create to illustrate the issues that desperately need to be discussed. I search for truth to interpret this world that is insane. There seems to be a secret side of life that the average, complacent American victim has no idea about, and is partially responsible for. I believe the powers that be are mindlessly manipulating society to satisfy our addiction to greed and power. There are deeper levels of secret organization who are invested in harming upon the uninitiated and poor worldwide.
RC: Also, how did you develop (or evolve) your major pictorial form—the one (or 2 or 3) you use for the big pieces? (Which seems to me like a contemporary melding of classic social & political muralists’ heroic populist representation, teeming with images, use of deep illusionistic space and cracking open Pandora’s Box just enough to let loose some spiritualized microcosmic sci-fi galaxy spinning.)
M: My subject matter stems from what is happening right now and sometimes incorporates the past but shows how they are linked and perpetuated. My paintings are philosophical perspectives on reality and I use real world current issues, juxtaposed with ancient myth, symbolism and my own imagination of the future in order to express a multidimensional way of conceiving of life responsibly and artistically. This is my way of looking into larger fields of time and how the human experience plays itself out. In addition, my work speaks about the unheard and lesser known ideas surrounding our culture like Social Conditioning, Political Power, The Higher Self Psychology, and The Material and Non-Material universe. I use current issues to discover their connection to past events and draft out a diagram of how time may be more akin to something like a four dimensional spherical reality as opposed to linear. There is something happening here and I want to know. There is a saying that goes something like, “If you long for ease and comfort than settle for it, but if your quest is for truth than you must search, and search you will.” And so here I am searching through my work to find what is true.
Photos by Tim Hans
Okay I’m gonna write this quickly and get outside, because it’s basically been cloudy and rainy for two straight weeks in Philadelphia and now there’s finally some sun. But just in case the weather where you are isn’t so nice, here are some links:
Photo by carnagenyc
With his trademark style of painting creatures and other things as though they are made up of hundreds of twisted metal shards, DALeast has launched himself onto the international street art like one of his animals launching at its prey. In our continuing series of photo-portraits of artists by Tim Hans, Tim met up with DALeast on the streets of London, where he has painted about half a dozen murals recently. I had a few questions for the artist…
RJ: Why do you think so many popular muralists right now are painting animals?
DALeast: If we’re look into human history, we can really see how much we love ourselves as we have already done so many artworks that describe human beings. I think it is the time to give more attention to the other beings before they disappear. Animals are really close to us, but we never see them. I wondering how many people have see a real pig even though they are eating pork everyday. Muralists found the chance to turn the city into a ‘jungle’, As we work in the public space – where the humans are.
RJ: What has been your favorite thing about London?
DALeast: I found out that I haven’t been changed by that city after I left.
RJ: Do you feel like you’re at the point where you can paint things the way you want to paint them, or are you still to reach that point with your technique?
DALeast: To reach a point of technique has never been a part of my game.
RJ: What makes you want to paint a particular wall or not?
DALeast: Fate.
RJ: Where else will you be painting soon?
DALeast: Excitement for the unknown.
Photos by Tim Hans
I’ve been a fan of Run‘s work for many years, but I’ve never met the man and never really knew much about him. All I knew were his men, creeping around the walls of Hackney and Shoreditch. Earlier this year, Tim Hans met up to Run for the latest in our continuing series of photo-portraits of artists by Tim, and I asked him a few questions over email.
RJ: Who are the people in your paintings? Anyone, or group, in particular?
Run: The people that I paint show an evolution of episodes and experiences. They are ‘nobody’, they are the portrait of ‘nobody’, they are not even a race (some people said that they have black features) but they have not, they are a template to demonstrate actions, feelings and thought. Sometimes they have a totally blank expression, but others are completely awake and aware. I guess that on the deepest level any artist tries to reproduce him or herself; we are just trying to survive and perpetuate ourselves in order to not disappear. Where I cannot go, or where I cannot reach, “the people of my paintings” can.
RJ: What do you look for when choosing a wall to paint?
Run: The urban environment is so diverse and exciting to look at that sometimes it doesn’t need any other information to be added to it. We should carefully consider whether to add a painting, it really is a delicate matter. Graffiti has such a strong and random statement, that for it to appear it doesn’t need to ask permission and it is totally beautiful and spontaneous. If you look at cities like Rome or Madrid, Buenos Aires or San Paulo, graffiti is everywhere and is not inscribed in any closed area. It is the skin of the city that changes constantly like a snake.
What I do is a bit different because it is not horizontal or vertical but expands with the shape of the building, squashing the architecture around the drawing. I can’t always ‘choose’ a wall but I guess that when I can, I go for the wall that gives me the most options for creating what I want. Also I go for a wall that gives me the chance to be organic with the city and with the architecture/habitants/
RJ: You do a fair bit of traveling. What have been your favorite places to visit?
Run: Traveling it will never be enough. West Africa has been my latest destination and is probably now on the top of my list of places to go back to. It was a self organised and planned trip and I had the backing of a few amazing people (two above all, WideOpenWalls (Gambia) and Yattal Art (Senegal in Dakar)). I moved through the countries by land (and boats), to have a closer view of the culture and nature. People over there don’t care about ‘street art’ or who you are as an artist, but the person that you are.
The most astonishing places to visit for me were where the nature is virtually untouched and where really there’s nothing to paint.
Other than that I try to concentrate on organising my trips, and luckily I’m getting better at that. Maybe now I feel that every trip is such a special opportunity, nothing should be underestimated or taken for granted.
RJ: What is your goal with your art?
Run: Control my time. Inspire people and get inspired. Keep my rebellion always consciously aware and exercised.
RJ: Can you explain your recent fascination with phones? Seems like a completely different subject matter.
Run: When I was in Africa I wanted so many times to communicate with my friends overseas, but it was almost impossible. Sometimes there was no electricity or water, so imagine the internet or mobile phone networks!
Art is projecting magic into the world, so the phone-box was like a dimensional door, you know, it gave me confidence that someone was on the other side of the line ready to listen to me. It’s magic, it really works!
Yes, it makes more sense in a wild area with broken networks, but it’s funny and I like it, kids like it too and I bet adults do as well.
I remember the first couple of phone-boxes that I painted in villages in Africa, the kids called them ‘mobile’, of course, because they have never seen a public landline phone before. I like to keep this phone old fashioned, but I think that I will only paint phones for this year 2013 and then I will stop.
Photos by Tim Hans
Pure Evil is one of the familiar faces of the British street art scene both for his own art and for The Pure Evil Gallery that he runs in Shoreditch. Tim Hans met with Pure Evil at his gallery/studio for the latest in our continuing series of photo-portraits of artists by Tim, and Caroline asked Pure Evil about art and his gallery.
Caroline: Do you think it’s important for artists to have a sort of trademark or logo?
Pure Evil: No, I think artists who stick to the same recognizable thing and just do it again and again are being boring. This is ironic because I repeatedly draw bunnies everywhere. I don’t see that as a logo, it’s a tag. I was watching a film about David Bowie the other night and I got this from it which is very good advice. HOW TO BE A GREAT ARTIST – Change the diversity of what you do at a mind boggling rate. Be prodigious and act as a lightning rod for your time. Bowie did it, I want to achieve something similar, just by doing a whole bunch of crazy different stuff.
CC: What inspires you to create? Where do your ideas come from?
PE: They kind of bombard me from everywhere.. its that whole ‘being a lightning rod’ idea…There’s a flash and then it’s embedded in my cranium. It might be a sentence in a book I’m reading. It might be an image on Tumblr. It might be something I misheard but decided the new form of the phrase is interesting. It might be from a dream. It might be something that I saw and then promptly forgot and then later on thought of it as an original idea.
I just did a check through my history to see what I have been looking at in the past week :
CC: What was it like being raised by a father who is an artist?
PE: He only took me to the cinema once, to see “LIVE AND LET DIE” which was awesome to watch as a kid, but boy he took me to a lot of art museums and we saw a lot of celtic standing stones all over Europe. It was great being surrounded by Picasso’s and Pop Art when I was growing up. I loved seeing how he never stopped painting EVER. It’s really inspiring… he’s probably painting right now.
CC: What was starting your own gallery like?
PE: It was totally inspired by Aaron Rose’s Alleged Gallery. That was the blueprint, that and Santa’s Ghetto… Just get a space, paint the walls white and hey presto! You have a gallery. I didn’t even think of keeping it going for more than 2 weeks, but it just seemed like fun. Finding a whole basement that could be used to make art and music was a bonus, and the area is smack bang in the middle of street art central which is pretty cool. I call myself the accidental gallerist though, working out how to actually run it and make it work in the long run was a bit of work, but I just looked at Leo Castelli and what an amazing job he did with Pop Art in the 60’s… he’s a bit of a guru. Read Leo and His Circle. It’s an eye opening book.
CC: Your creativity is pretty multifaceted. Could you talk about the different mediums you use in your artwork? Or about the projects you’ve worked on besides visual arts?
PE: I like spray paint quite a bit. Right now I’m having a lot of fun doing freehand spray stuff and layering OCD tags on top of each other to make randomness. I also like using Krink which moves so beautifully. Then there’s neon which is bloody beautiful to look at and because it comes from signage it’s a perfect medium for street art, which is street signage. I’ve got a neon in a contemporary auction in Paris which is quite humbling because it’s in there with complete legends like Victor Vasarely and Kenneth Noland. Making a genre jump is pretty exciting. Being stuck in one box is tedious. My baby sits in a little brightly coloured doughnut for about half an hour and then she just gets bored and wants some boob. Street Art is the doughnut, Contemporary art is the boob.
I’m quite into making films, just short shonky stuff, and I’m looking into using 16mm just because it’s beautiful and analog. In the basement we have an amazing music studio. It kicks ass. Here’s the music stuff. I’ve got an album called A NEW DAWN coming out in July and another coming out soon after called THE NATIONAL ARCHIVE. All art movements have a soundtrack and were making ours in-house.
CC: Any upcoming projects we should look forward to?
PE: No. Fear them all. Actually I had a baby called Bunny recently and she is going to be something….
Photos by Tim Hans
The work of Jack Murray aka Panik ATG as a cornerstone of my early experiences looking at graffiti in London in 2008, and I’ve continued to admire and follow his work since. Tim Hans met Murray in London for Tim’s continuing series of artist portraits, and Murray and I caught up a bit over email.
RJ: Why the decision to start going by Jack Murray instead of / in addition to Panik?
Jack Murray: It’s all about growth. A lot of my studio/gallery work these days doesn’t really reference the world of graffiti so it doesn’t seem right to pull it back into the Graffiti scene by referring to myself as Panik. I like to make artwork that reflects my thoughts on the world, or era’s from the past, I also like to write and take photos. All of that stuff comes from my mind that has developed as a person from birth and not necessarily as my alter-ego that has grown up within Graffiti. Naturally sometimes these worlds cross over but when someone is looking at my work in a gallery etc, I prefer to shake off the direct association with graffiti as it can change people’s perceptions of who you are and remind them of a world that may have little to do with what they are viewing. I’ll always be rooted in Graffiti and people who know, know, but if you don’t know then that’s fine just look at the artwork and make your judgements upon what your viewing, don’t worry about how many tag’s I did, or if I ever got arrested etc. Hope that helped clear that one up.
RJ: For a while, you were one of the most visible writers in London. How does it feel to know you’ve left that kind of mark on this city where kids will grow up thinking of your name as part of the landscape?
Jack Murray: Having a genuine effect over your landscape is what makes graffiti so powerful, as you can battle with the adverts and everything else that fills your field of vision, so knowing at one time I had real control over the city’s landscape (and still do like any other active graffiti/street artist) was/is an ego boost of course but also a very liberating feeling. Writers that came before me were the reason I thought it was possible to do the things that I did and I just want to have the same effect on younger writers coming up. When you’re really active with the bombing you want to be that guy known for going the extra length but once you have got yourself out of that mind set and are focusing on other things, you want to see someone else going for it and soaking up the glory in the same way. Being king of your city forever with no-one stepping in would be dull. When the new writers come through and make an impact, the older heads will always find reasons as to why the newbies are not quite as certified as they are/were but secretly in the back of their minds they’re happy to have some competition and to see things moving forwards.
RJ: While you sit pretty comfortably within the world of graffiti, you paint a lot of characters, even your “P” is a sort of character, and ATG has a logo that goes beyond just being three letters. Is there a reason for that?
Jack Murray: I’m not sure if there is a direct reason for any of that, more just down to us going with whatever feels right at the time. Some people hated it when I started painting characters and just wanted to see me paint straight letter rooftops for the rest of my life, or when ATG moved into being represented as a wider movement/brand, but then others were entertained by all of these transitions. Some people are destined to go in certain directions, so while I might sit pretty comfortable within graffiti, my creative release was never going to just be traditional graffiti and ATG was never going to be just a bombing crew. Once we felt we’d done all we could do within illegal graffiti we simply looked for other stuff to engage in.
RJ: What was it like exhibiting in New York, where you don’t have the same fanbase who have seen your work on their daily commute for years? Did people respond to different things about your paintings?
Jack Murray: New York was great. If anything the fact that people weren’t that familiar with my work made them more intrigued. In general New Yorkers are pretty upfront and vocal with their thoughts which meant there was lots of good feedback from people on the opening night. Having people come straight up to you and tell you how they see your work on the opening night is exactly what you want really as it lets you know that people are properly engaging with it as opposed to just drinking the free drinks and talking about what happened last weekend. Every city has a different atmosphere with inhabitants that have different mannerisms and tastes, on the whole my work seemed like it gelled well with New Yorkers so would definitely like to do more stuff out there down the line.
RJ: What are you working on at the moment?
Jack Murray: I’m currently getting stuck into a seasonal wave of private commissions which is always good. Outside of that I am busy working on a new movement which focuses on a wide variety of things including, abandoned locations, fashion, travel, models, graffiti, photography, film and writing. There’s lots planned for this movement including a gallery show at the beginning of July in London. I’m also in the process of trying to set-up a local arts charity for young people alongside my Mum and some close friends.
Photos by Tim Hans
Another massive month in Melbourne in April with some great events, shows and work on the streets. This month I’ve also decided to include a bit more on graff and also some work off the streets in some of Melbourne’s awesome abandos.
There’s been an explosion of panels running in Melbourne recently, including a couple of whole cars. Whilst some of the pieces are not the best in quality it’s still rad to see so much graff on trains again lately. Are the authorities asleep? Or is it our lack of trains to meet demand to blame so they HAVE to run them? The best of Melbourne graffiti Facebook page is a good place to keep up with what’s running, they cover anything running each day on the Melbourne rail network (good and bad). Here’s my favourite flick from the page for April. Continue reading “Melbourne Monthly Madness – April 2013”
2501’s first solo show in the states, at Soze Gallery in Los Angeles, opened last week. While he was in LA, 2501 met up with Tim Hans for the latest in our continuing series of photo-portraits of artists by Tim Hans, and I asked 2501 a few question about his work.
RJ: How do your indoor and outdoor works relate to one another?
2501: My whole body of work is connected. That’s also one of the subjects of my first solo in USA “see you on the other side”. I see my work as a full circle where I’m trying to bring what I learn from muralism into the video or into the sculptures and vice versa. The connection from the inside and the outside is the way I approach problems. Art is definitely also problem solving. I think that art is all a matter of experimenting with new ways of saying things, new languages, research.
RJ: Why do you paint outside?
2501: I don’t know why I paint outside, it just happens and now it is too late. I can’t stop anymore. I come from scientific school and then film school so I learned to paint by doing graffiti outside. My mother use always to say that graffiti is a kind of sport and painting together… plus adventures I will say.. so the perfect mix body and mind.
RJ: How important is documentation for you? Would you be happy to just paint something and leave it, or is documentation part of your artistic process?
2501: Documentation is important. As a collector (I collect zines, comics, old strange stuff, etc) I was always involved in collecting pictures of what we did from film to digital. A lot of my friends ask me for picture from 10 years ago because they know I have them.
RJ: Can you talk about your thinking behind your Dynamic Influence wall from last fall?
2501: Dynamic Influence is a wall that change with the light. The all concept is about transformation. All the things that we look at are not the same twice. I’m preparing other work with the same or similar concept of changing.
RJ: Where does the number 2501 come from?
2501: 2501 is the number of my rebirth as an artist and also the date of founding of Sao Paulo in Brasil, my second hometown.
Photos by Tim Hans
