Interview – Watch This Space

Chromatic Oscillations – An Interview with Drez

Good things take time – that’s what they say, anyway. It’s hard to believe that it was mid-March when we sat down with Melbourne artist Drez to reflect on his whirlwind visit to Ōtautahi for the Flare Street Art Festival, where does the time go? With a lot going on, it has taken us a while to finally publish our conversation (conducted in a car in Phillipstown just before Drez departed for the airport!), but we know it is worth the wait! After getting to know Drez as he painted his striking mural on St Asaph Street, it was a privilege to take the chance to dive a bit deeper into his practice, his influences and the comparative cultural and historic landscapes of Aotearoa and Australia. A thoughtful and reflective presence, Drez reveals the importance that he places on his work’s ability to engage its audience through colour and form, eliciting a direct connection between art and experience…

On the day that you’re about to leave, its great to finally get to have a chat – I guess we should start with how you have enjoyed your time in Ōtautahi, Christchurch…

Drez: I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, pretty chock-a-block with painting and then one hour to do something else and then sleeping and then painting again, you know, just rinse and repeat. But it’s been really nice. Everybody has been super friendly, people have responded really well to the mural. All of the festival hosting has been great, and we’ve met a lot of good people. All things considered, it’s been a good time.

This is your first time in the city, right? Did you look into Ōtautahi before coming over or have you learned on the ground?

Drez: I did a little bit of research into mainly just looking at the earthquakes and how that affected the city. I guess more broadly I did a bit more research on New Zealand, the history of the population that’s been here and pre-colonial and post-colonial sort of times.

Is that something that you would normally do when you’re traveling or is that something that has kind of been fed into you as an artist, that need to explore those types of contexts? It’s an increasing responsibility for artists to know about the environments that they’re going to and working in, right? Knowing that you are here for a short span and would be under time pressure to complete the mural, does that add to that responsibility to have a bit more of an understanding in advance?

Drez: To be honest, not really. Like, I think for me, my work is not really narrative driven or political or about social stories or the environment as such. It’s more focused on art and colour and architecture and tropes that don’t really lean into the social environment. So, in terms of directly relating to my work, it’s not hugely relevant. But for me personally, I am super interested, and I think it’s important when you go to other locations to know about the culture. And there’s obviously a correlation between New Zealand and Australia and the First Nations’ history in Australia and the pre-colonial history in New Zealand as well. So I thought, you know, I felt like there was a level of responsibility to understand a bit more and not just come in and be like, great, I’m just going to paint a wall and then piss off home and keep doing what I’m doing without caring about where I’ve actually been or any of the important aspects of where I’ve been.

You know, I think for both Australia and Aotearoa, we’re at really important times in terms of the discourse around indigeneity and the legacy of colonialism and the responsibilities to address issues that have faced indigenous cultures in both countries. Obviously, as you say, your work is not necessarily centred on that, but how do you sort of see the relationship between the two countries. Have you noticed anything while you’ve been here that sort of signifies our differences or similarities?

Drez: I’ve definitely noticed a bit. I mean, I think obviously there’s a similar time period as to when colonial settlement happened between New Zealand and Australia. So, in terms of the age of our colonial nations, it’s similar, it is quite different to America that’s got a couple of hundred years on top of us and other places that have even more extensive time periods. So, I think in terms of the age of our countries, there is a similarity, which is why it’s interesting to see how that post colonialisation has unfolded. I think there definitely is a difference and a more significant integration of First Nations culture in New Zealand than there is in Australia, lots of really simple things. I feel like definitely in Melbourne, there isn’t anywhere near as much representation. When you get up north there is more, but in Melbourne and Sydney, the big cities, there isn’t as much representation. And I think simple things like, you know, using. Using language pretty regularly in emails and communications and seeing lots of non-English language on signs, that’s a pretty clear sign of there being more than one culture in a space. That representation is really important for the celebration of culture. And yeah, I think Australia, and definitely Melbourne, is a bit behind in that respect.

It’s interesting. As a city, Christchurch holds this reputation as being the most quintessentially colonial city in Aotearoa. And yet of course, the earthquakes have shaken loose a lot of that and have allowed us to recognize the need for better reflection and representation of our indigenous histories and identities in the cityscape. You might have noticed some of that in the architecture and the signage and the public artworks that you have come across. There’s still obviously a long way to go. In your experience, whether or not it’s engaging directly with those narratives, is art in the streets a way to break down accepted or perceived constructions, to explore new ways of thinking? Do you see your work falling into that context, that even if it’s not explicitly political, it’s a rethinking of public space?

Drez: Yeah, I think so. I mean definitely street art and public art has that ability to create representation and engage in the representation of different stories. The more that you see that in signage and architecture and murals and public art, the more that culture is celebrated and the more that culture is less othered, as opposed to very colonial spaces that are all about the more colonial architecture and imagery and signage and language and places where it totally removes any presence of a non-colonial culture. So yeah, definitely public space and the imagery in it plays a massive role in that experience for somebody that’s not from a location. And I think, in terms of my work, it definitely speaks to thinking about using public space in a, I guess, less traditional way. But again, my work really doesn’t speak to these cultural narratives. It speaks more to the narrative of art and street art and contemporary art and the cultural divide between contemporary and urban art. So, I guess it reaches more to that space and that sort of divide of what is highbrow and what is lowbrow, and what spaces are to be used in different ways. I think it sometimes loses a little bit of context when the productions are really high scale and you know, on much larger buildings or there’s lots of infrastructure put in place in terms of access and assistance and these sorts of things and council permits and stuff to do it. But definitely when I was doing more illegal works, it really spoke to that sort of, you know, cross cultural divide between highbrow and lowbrow connotations or conversations of art and where art can be and what art has value.

Right.

Drez: And which people making art have value. That’s another pretty important part to that, I think.

That leads into that discussion of your personal trajectory and coming from the world and background of graffiti and into a career now that straddles aspects of that world with highly contemporary practice. How have you navigated that transition or that trajectory? How much does your work reach into both of those worlds simultaneously? How much influence does that graffiti background still have in your work, and how much is that contemporary approach now influencing your view of graffiti as an art form?

Drez: Well, I think it’s still pretty 50/50. I haven’t really painted any graffiti for quite a while. I always want to, but I just haven’t. I haven’t made the time to be doing that because I’m always doing other things. But I do still think that my love for public space and my desire to paint in public space and to make work that is publicly available and isn’t just sitting in that contemporary art world is just as strong as it’s always been. And that intention, that art is available to people no matter if you have a contemporary art background or if you’ve been taught that sort of history, understand it and have that knowledge, or if you’re just a person that doesn’t even know what the word art means, and you have absolutely no idea. I think I want it to be accessible to everybody because I still believe in the ability to affect change and not necessarily just socio-politically but just by brightening people’s days and creating a different quality of life as such. So yeah, I think both of them still affect me and I still try and bring elements of my street work into the gallery space, like, playing with sprayed textures and that experience of movement and being in space is a really fundamental element of my gallery-based practice.

In terms of your public works, what is the balance between the role of colour and tone and the physical makeup of the space and the impact that has on the geometry of a work?

Drez: It’s balancing the two. I think when you can get the balance bang in the middle, that’s going to make the work that has the most impact in the space, but also feels the most harmonious with the space and really sort of shifts your experience of the entire environment. As opposed to being an image on a wall that simply does its own thing within its own space. If you can integrate the architecture and the geometry of the environment, as well as bringing colours in, then you activate every aspect of the space as opposed to just where you’re working.

One of the things that really struck me watching you work was the beauty of a hand-pulled line, it made me think of that quote from Margaret Kilgallen in Beautiful Losers, where she talks about a wavering hand and a line always being slightly imperfect. Was that something that you always intended as a valuable part of your work, that human element of the process? I imagine a lot of people will look at one of your works and assume it’s very precise and exact, but instead there’s actually real humanity in the process and in the finished article as well. Is that a very intentional thing or is that something that kind of occurred organically?

Drez: No, it’s definitely intentional. I feel like that that human touch is really important to my work. It really assists with giving a sort of vibrational and emotive effect to the work that speaks to people in a really different way. It also speaks to two worlds of art that I really love, which is the 1960s-1950s Greenbergian Modernism and Op Art from that era as well. European Op Art at that time was very crisp and very taped and very hard edge, lots of the modernism was very much focused on the purity of medium and action and painting for the sake of painting and all of these sorts of elements. I really love both those worlds, and I try and straddle a place in the middle where you have all of that emotion and all of that purity of paint, colour being colour and form being form, and that’s what’s beautiful about it. But then also the optical effects of Op Art and that really crisp nature of how colour really affects colour and how lines affect colour and form affects colour. I really try and play with both of those two mega classical worlds of abstract art, to bring them together, but I also put it into a street context to really have that ultra highbrow contemporary connotation mixed with the lowbrow street art-esque connotation as well. It’s straddling all of those lines to create that cross-cultural conversation is really important.

You’ve touched on the way that your work is occupying different spaces, whether it’s the gallery space or the street space. Was the development of your mural approach reflecting studio practice or did the studio practice come from that mural approach? Were they occurring simultaneously or did one feed into the other?

Drez: They were occurring simultaneously, but not side by side for quite a while. So, for a long time I painted graffiti and all the graf I did was just letter-based stuff. There was lots of variation, but it was always exploring different graffiti ideas, quite classical graffiti ideas. But I was doing a lot of abstract art as well that was totally different to the graffiti and had no imagery at all. But really, I had no relationship between the two. Then I started painting abstract art on walls, and as soon as I sort of hit that mark, it went back into my gallery-based approach as well. They were kind of separate for a while, but then I started really enjoying doing something on walls and then I fed that back into my studio practice.

Your studio practice has embraced sculptural approaches as well as wall work. How does the sculptural approach change your thinking? Because you are kind of creating the surface or creating the object for the colour to be applied. How does that three-dimensional approach come out differently from when you’re working in an existing space? Is it more challenging or more freeing? What is the unique attraction of that approach?

Drez: It’s definitely more challenging, I think. So, the sculptural works that I’m predominantly working on at the moment, they also come from works that I was doing on walls. I have a series of works called Chromatic Oscillation, works that are all about lines of colour and varying gradients and planes of colour sitting on top of each other, moving left and right, creating an oscillating and optical effect, dragging you backwards and forwards throughout a wall. And so, the sculptural works, are basically a way of making that in a 3D structure that made that effect happen even more, really trying to accentuate it. This movement of colour and the movement of the person and the space the person holds within the room as they view the work. And so, I mean, as with all of my work, I just keep taking one step and exploring and extrapolating upon the previous idea and trying to make that more obvious in the next idea. The sculptures, you know, really do situate people and make your presence felt, as opposed to the artwork’s presence, necessarily. And I think that really leans back into the idea of wanting art to be for people, so people can have an experience and having it in public space and giving that experience to people and really trying to harness and exemplify that. That’s what is important. I think that’s the relationship. And, you know, they’re definitely more difficult. They’re definitely quite a lengthy process and there are lots of logistics involved in making them happen as opposed to doing paintings on walls. But, you know, they really do get a strong effect, and that’s what’s important.

Well, you’re about to leave for the airport, so I want to thank you so much, not just for the chance to chat, but for the artwork that you’ve left the city as well, I hope we see you back soon!

To see more of Drez’s incredible work, from public art to incredible studio productions, follow @d.r.e.z on Instagram or check out his profile at Magma Galleries…

Photo credit: Centuri Chan

The Dark Countdown Begins! An Interactive Installation by Centuri Chan

Centuri Chan is a multi-faceted creative – one of the forces (excuse the pun, it will make sense later…) behind the Humans of Christchurch Ōtautahi project, he is a photographer, content creator, Lego block master, and, importantly, a ‘Star Wars guy’. In his upcoming project Dark Countdown, he will fuse his fixation on a galaxy far, far away with a visual commentary on the waste created by mass commercial marketing and short-term collectible fads. The result will be an interactive installation that is an impressive patch work image, and a deeper commentary on contemporary consumerism and capitalism. We took the chance to let Centuri fill us in on this intriguing project, giving us an insight into the concept and execution…

“In 2016 a major supermarket chain released a set of Star Wars collectibles as part of a gimmicky advertising campaign. A grocery spend of $20 or more would be awarded with a single blind-bagged ‘Cosmic Shell’ featuring a character from the Star Wars films. Collectors were encouraged to collect and trade for the complete set of 36 to fill an exclusive collectors album.

I conceived this Dark Countdown artwork around 2020 after finding hundreds of cosmic shells at op-shops, flea markets and online marketplaces after the promotion ended. I have always been a collector, and I have been a huge Star Wars fan since I was a youngster. My past-self would have spent countless hours and grocery trips completing the set.

Instead, it was after the hype died down that I started. I spent several years collecting bulk lots, bags of spares, and even unopened boxes of these small plastic discs.” Chan will now utilise this vast collection to create a 5-metre wide mosaic image at the St Asaph Street gallery space The Art Hole. In collecting the required amount of discs to create the massive artwork, Chan is able to highlight the problematic nature of such gimmicks, which intentionally cause a furore of excitement like a brief sugar rush, before most of the collectible trinkets are discarded and forgotten. It is easy to imagine which side of the galactic unrest the producers might fall on (insert Imperial March here)…

The Dark Countdown installation is almost five years in the making. The final work will be a giant photo-mosaic made from thousands of these discarded Cosmic Shells. The exhibition comprises two parts, the interactive installation of week one, where the public is invited to help create the giant mosaic in situ at the Art Hole gallery space from Tuesday 20th May (opening 5:30pm to 7pm) until Saturday 24th May. The second stage will see the completed artwork on display for a week, open to the public from Tuesday 27th May (the unveiling at 5:30pm – 7:00pm) to Saturday 31st May.

Be part of Dark Countdown by helping install the giant mosaic work and visiting the exhibition:

Interactive Installation:
Opening – Tuesday 20th May, 5.30pm – 7:00pm
Gallery Open Hours: Tuesday 20th May – Saturday 24th May, 9:00am – 4:00pm

Exhibition:
Opening (Artwork Unveiling) – Tuesday 27th May, 5.30pm – 7:00pm
Gallery Open Hours: Tuesday 27th May – Saturday 31st May, 9:00am – 4:00pm

Follow Dark Countdown on Facebook for updates and follow Centuri Creative on Instagram…

Spotlight Version 3.0 – with Iva Anjani

The latest Spotlight work to illuminate the Gloucester Street side of Te Pae Christchurch Convention Centre is a warm, inviting scene created by local artist Iva Anjani. Further exploring the possibilities of the projected animation format, Anjani’s peaceful domestic scene was created by hand, stitching together up-cycled materials to compile the image. A painstaking process, the work is imbued with care and exudes a sense of serenity, a reminder of those places where we can find sanctuary. With the scene brought to subtle life through the wizardry of Immersive Reality’s Nick Keyse, Anjani’s work provides a soft contrast to the urban surrounding, a window of calm to contemplate. As Anjani’s first public artwork, we took the opportunity to talk to the artist about her experiences and reflections as her vision came to life…

Hi Iva – can you introduce yourself?

Hello! I’m Iva and I honestly never know how to answer these kinds of questions. I’m just a girl who picked up a new hobby during the lock-downs and ran with that. I’m Indonesian, I love spicy food, and I can’t swim.

What was your initial response to the Spotlight project and how it might work for your creative process?

I want to say, first of all, that I was really surprised when I was even approached to do this project because I’m not an artist by trade. So, I guess that means I didn’t already have a “creative process”. I looked at all the previous artists featured in the project and it got me shaking in my boots! Everyone featured were all such established Ōtautahi artists with distinct styles, and their Spotlight artwork were all thoughtful and clever. But I was determined to step up to the occasion. I’ve been sharing stuff I make online for as long as I can remember so I just approached this the same way. Except people on the street can see it and not a small number of people online curated by me and the algorithm… yikes!

Anyway, the Spotlight project is awesome because it’s so unique but it doesn’t get hindered by the style or medium of the artist. I didn’t have to do anything differently. I planned the design, check to make sure it would look nice when viewed from afar, and got straight to cutting and sewing.

As your first large public work, what challenges did the process throw up?

Everything was a bit challenging. It was technically very laborious. I sew clothes mainly and I’ve done small embroidery or applique projects, but this was bigger and ironically with tinier details. I’ve never done anything like it before. However, I think my biggest challenge was deciding what to show that was truly “me” and still be something the public can resonate with. Also getting it done in a timely manner while having a full-time hospo job… that was so hard, haha.

How did you find the collaborative aspect of the project and Nick’s work to animate your art?

I don’t think it could’ve gone any better. I had full faith in what Nick can do. I had suggestions on what to animate and my main concern was providing enough assets for him to aid in the animation. It’s not a dynamic scene so I thought it would’ve been a mission for him to animate, but damn he did well! The zoom in’s are brilliant – that’s all him!

Can you describe the scene you created – it feels at once very personal and yet very universal…

Sure! It’s a view through a window into someone’s kitchen – my kitchen if you wanna be specific. There’s curry on the stove. I’m frying an egg (I love crispy eggs with anything). There’s a bunch of dishes already in the sink because somehow that always happens, even when you’re cooking for one. It’s a starry night, the table’s set. The wind is blowing. If you look closely, you can try to glean what kind of person I am from what’s stuck on the fridge door: a kid’s drawing, an unpaid parking ticket, and a little polaroid of a four-legged friend. I guess what’s missing is just my rice cooker!

There is a lovely feeling that the work brings the domestic into the public realm, how do you hope people respond to the work?

Yeah, I really hope people can see some aspect of their home in the scene through the details I’ve included. Maybe it’s the curry. Or maybe you have pretty green curtains. I just want people who are in the city at night to look at it and remember that they can access the memory of their home anytime they like, and maybe find some comfort that it’s something they can return to. I’m fully aware this in itself is a luxury. If that’s the case, I hope they can feel some peace when they see the scene and take a moment for themselves.

The work was created from upcycled materials, how important is that approach in your practice?

Extremely! It was really essential that I only used second-hand materials when making this project. I managed to source everything I need from op shops (shoutout to Creative Junk) and stuff I already own. Even down to the thread. There’s already so much stuff on this Earth. I didn’t feel any need to buy anything new to create it. It also wouldn’t feel right making something that serves the public at the cost of the planet.

What were your thoughts the first time you saw the work live and illuminated?

Excited! Confused? How was it possible that I made that? I don’t know! I’ve never achieved anything of this scale. I guess, overall, at the risk of sounding simplistic, I was very happy.

Has this project inspired any new ideas that you want to explore?

Yes, it definitely has built up my interest in mixing different needlework techniques and fabric textures to make paintings, maybe even making it wearable. I feel like the possibilities are truly endless now!

There must be a few thank you’s to dish out – who do you want to give a high five?

Yes! Huge thanks to you and Nick for believing in what I can deliver. For Selina and Kophie for holding my damn hand in the beginning when I didn’t know how to start the project at all. And, of course, to my partner, Chase, for hyping me up on those nights where I felt like giving up. He’s my best friend and he inspires me every day.

You can see Iva’s work in person after dark at the intersection of Colombo Street and Gloucester Street.

Spotlight is made possible with support from the Christchurch City Council’s Place Partnership Fund, Rau Paenga, Phoenix PDP and Immersive Reality.

Flare Ōtautahi Street Art Festival 2025 Is Almost Here!

After a three year hiatus, the Flare Ōtautahi Street Art Festival is back for 2025! Featuring seven headline artists creating large-scale murals across the city, more than 50 additional artists contributing to a range of creative activations, street art tours, an artist panel, workshops, a market and an exhibition – this is going to be huge! Oh, and did we mention the creation of Aotearoa’s tallest mural by Jacob Yikes?!?

To mark this return, we caught up with some of the central organising crew – project manager Selina Faimalo, artists Dcypher and Kophie a.k.a Meep, along with our own Reuben Woods to chat about the challenges, the excitement and legacy of Flare!

So, there’s less than a week to go until Flare Ōtautahi Street Art Festival 2025 kicks off! How are you feeling Selina?

Selina Faimalo: I’m good!

Are you sure?

SF: I feel a bit scattered as there’s so much to do, but it is such an exciting time!

You have already done a lot, Yikes has started his huge mural on the Distinction Hotel, the multi-crew wall in Sydenham is complete, a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff is coming into place… How different has this year been from the 2022 festival?

SF: It’s much easier. There are no Covid restrictions, which has made it a lot easier! With the funding we had already secured, it’s been way easier to get sponsors to get behind it. I guess it’s been okay with walls… Actually, it’s been easy to get the walls, it’s been harder to get concepts approved…

What are the most common challenges with getting concepts approved?

SF: Flare is all about creative freedom, so getting feedback from wall owners and then giving it back to the artists has been hard. We didn’t really have that as much with the first festival.

Do you think that’s because of the new locations or is it a changing sentiment? Street art has to deal those relationships constantly, balancing permission and a process of concession with creative expression. Dcypher, Kophie, as artists how do you navigate those challenges and do those experiences give you more insight when you’re on the ground team helping organise these types of events?

Kophie a.k.a Meep: For me, it’s always important to be able to interpret the brief in my own way, but in doing so I really value working with people and reflecting community, social and environmental issues, which are informed by the research I carry out. Freedom isn’t about painting whatever I want, it’s about responding in meaningful ways to the brief to reflect my ethos as well as the broader community. I think I now get more opportunities to work in that way.

Dcypher, you’re pretty versatile, have you always been willing to go with the flow?

Dcypher: Yeah, that’s always been my approach. I feel like mural art is one of those things
that hopefully reflects community, you know if multiple people have input it always has more impact,
rather than just doing exactly what I want to do all the time. It can be less impactful to only have one specific viewpoint , not a more wide-ranging perspective.

Ultimately, that is a sign of public art right? It’s this mixture of expression and public conversation, so it’s always walking a tightrope in a way…

D: Exactly it’s like a discussion interpreted into a visual format that can be translated in many ways.

Jacob Yikes begins work on his mural for Flare on the Distinction Hotel

What is it like being on the organisational side of something like this? Obviously, your expertise as artists is super helpful, but how much do you enjoy this side of it and would you rather just be an artist being invited to a festival?

D: Yeah, I would love to be the artist invited to all the festivals and having that creative freedom, but ultimately at the same time I actually like all the groundwork and boots-on-the-ground stuff that has to be done, just having a stake in helping other artists achieve their goals as mural artists is something I enjoy.

K: I’ve got a long history with event management, project management, and working with Selina, so I really like it, doing all the design and stuff like that, it’s fun. Tiring but fun. I organised the exhibition for the last festival as well.

2025 is the second incarnation of Flare, how has it evolved from that first iteration? We have already mentioned that the first festival was hampered by Covid, which changed some of the plans, is this version more like what you always envisaged for Flare?

SF: Yeah definitely. I think we have a solid team now behind Flare. I was a complete noob during the first Flare, I’d done events and stuff, but not street art festivals, obviously, having Kophie and Dcypher and Ikarus help me learn about the culture, I think I understand it all more now…

As much as you can anyway, right! Nothing is ever straight forward, right? There is always some issue or logistical problem, and this festival has had its fair share. I mean, creating one of New Zealand’s biggest murals is always going to create a lot of problems! Then you’ve got the relationship between the creative side and the commercial side. What other challenges have come up and how have you dealt with them?

SF: Often the walls to paint are easy to get, but the land next to the wall you are painting are hard and can be a barrier to getting across the line. Then there’s navigating relationships with who’s in the festival, trying to be inclusive, trying to stretch the budget. Everyone wants to be part of the festival, everyone wants to be involved, but you only have so much money and space…

D: Having done previous festivals, obviously it builds up the reputations of all the artists and
other people who want to get involved. It shows the greater community, the people that might be
paying for murals, the quality you can get. It shows off artists to the wider world…

SF: With Flare and my involvement organising large scale murals in between, I can understand what it means to organise a mural, but it’s so niche, there’s not that many people I can ask, it’s a very random job. But it’s really cool being a part of the process, like how much paint you need to order, what equipment you need. With Yikes’ mural, it was a logistical nightmare, I feel like now I could organise any scale mural, because that one is like three large lifts and abseilers and a massive projector that weighs 70 kilos! So, I think having a good team, a good community, is really key.

Talking about involving people, how did the seven headline artists come to be selected? We’ve got Nick Lowry, Jessie Rawcliffe, Jacob Yikes and Ysek7, all from Ōtautahi, and then you’ve got the three out of town artists, Fluro, Haser and Berst, what were the key reasons for selecting those artists?

D: I think there is always a desire to get new people opportunities who haven’t been part of
Flare before, but definitely, there should also be a focus on well-established Christchurch
artists…

K: It’s always important to have a diversity of styles.

SF: Berst is a key figure in the graffiti world and is generally just awesome to work with. We always have an approach that ensures graffiti is a big part of the festival and having Berst as one of the headliners achieves that, Fluro both has a connection here, having grown up in Ōtautahi, and she also comes from a graffiti background. Haser, has that grounding as well, but he also brings a totally unique style, infusing his work with his experience as a Māori artist. I feel like we need more representation of Māori art works locally…

It becomes about a public discourse, right? It’s the same with graffiti, which is seen as this thing to chastise, so incorporating it is really important to help the public to understand it and what impact it can have. It’s about acknowledging and creating a discourse about public performance. From a personal point of view for each of you, what are you most looking forward to in Flare?

SF: For it to start!

K: The opening and closing parties!

SF: I think just seeing it all happen. As soon as everyone’s got all their paint and they’ve got their lifts and it’s can to wall, paint brush to wall, and I can actually see what’s happening visually, rather than just on my computer and on my phone!

D: I think getting lots of artists in one spot together is just really cool. Starting conversations
and having an exchange of ideas and approaches to muralism for artists is a massive draw card for the New Zealand mural art scene in general, it’s not something that happens a lot, especially having everyone coming from all ends of the country.

K: Just hanging out with everyone, like in the last festival, when we got to scooter around on the Lime Scooters and see everyone’s progress, hang out and collaborate like Dcypher said. There’s such a wide mixture of things happening this time as well, so it’s like every day there is going to be stuff going on…

D: I think that the market day [on Saturday, March 8 at Te Pae Green] is probably going be a highlight for me, and of course, creating the largest mural in New Zealand!

How much thought goes into how this event reflects Ōtautahi’s street art standing? Obviously, there are some really good events around the country, like South Sea Spray, Graffiato, Boon, how important is it that Flare, just like Christchurch, has a unique vibe and feel, rather than it sort of replicating what’s already happening elsewhere?

SF: I guess it’s co-created, I think that’s the whole the thing about Flare, it’s created by everyone if that makes sense, it’s Dcypher, it’s Kophie, it’s Ikarus, it’s you, it’s everyone. It’s us trying to make it happen together…

D: I think just geographically the city’s layout and architecture is perfect for a thriving mural scene especially after the earthquakes it just really put Christchurch at the top of the list for muralism in New Zealand. All the prior festivals, Rise, Spectrum, all the stuff that OiYOU! did, you know everything that came before any of this started is super important as to where it’s going to go and why it is the way it is right now. All the work that everyone’s put in beforehand is finally culminating with Flare.

K: The incorporation of graffiti as well, is unique.

There’s a sense of authenticity because Flare is representing something that is organically and authentically happening in the city already. It’s incorporating those parts of the culture that matter in a way that maybe some other places are unable to do for various reasons. We’ve been through so much that half of the sell has already been made, its established. We need this type of event because we’ve got such an embedded urban art culture here. That goes along with making this event work, that sort of authentic, organic aspect, it’s a response to our city’s history, and it feels quite powerful.

SF: I think as well like I don’t know other cities, but everyone’s pretty easy and knows each other, it’s not too hard to get people to work together.

D: The Christchurch scene has always been like that, even back in the day all the different
graffiti crews, even though there were obviously conflicts, more often than not
everyone just got along and painted together…

Detail of the FSA X DTR X BRS Crew Production on Colombo Street in Sydenham

That is important because everyone is pulling in the same direction, everyone wants it to be successful rather than having people wanting to tear it down. Kophie, you were at an important age when like the likes of Rise and Spectrum took place and you got to be part of those festivals, how much of an influence did those experiences have on your pathway to becoming the artist you are now?

K: I was already writing graffiti and stuff, but just hanging out with all those international artists was just really inspiring, so I kind of like forced my way in there to volunteer and hang out with everyone, I just hung around and didn’t stop hanging around people until they let me paint!

SF: That’s how you make friends!

Do you hope that Flare will do that for another generation?

K: I hope so, but a lot of people don’t want to put in the volunteer work, or they just expect things to be handed to them, so get in there and do stuff…

For you Dcypher, this must be so pleasing, because when you were coming up we didn’t have these types of events here in Christchurch, it must be awesome to see that that evolution from your point of view.

D: Yeah, I mean half the reason I moved to the States was because I didn’t necessarily see a career
path here strictly painting murals . I knew Project Legit wouldn’t have longevity with the City Council’s viewpoint it wasn’t necessarily going to fund it forever, so it was time to leave. So coming back to Christchurch and seeing how much it had developed after the earthquakes was awesome…

Surely a programme like Project Legit would have benefited so much from having something like Flare, because it is a pathway, right? Project Legit was helping young graffiti writers explore positive outcomes, but where could they go from there at that time?

D: Yeah, at the time, I don’t think a lot of people saw a direct career path. I definitely did early
on, but all the other guys I would work with, not many of them saw that same career path,
everyone just wanted to keep it just strictly graffiti and unadulterated which is obviously the core ethos of graffiti culture. I think some people had that line of sight and a lot of people have differing viewpoints, it was either something that faded in their twenties, but now new generations can see a clear career path, even if they may not be hyper focused on it, they can still kind of see it as a potential direction.

So, how can people get involved this year in Flare?

SF: Come to everything!

D: Support your local artists, buy stuff! Exchange ideas!

SF: Go to the show, come to the talks and learn about the headlining artists, go on the tours and learn about what’s there already, volunteer…

D: Just bring life back into the city. After the earthquakes, all the malls took people away from the city, so this is a massive draw card to bring people into the city and make it feel alive.

Flare Ōtautahi Street Art Festival kicks off on February 28th, with the programme running through March 9th. Stay tuned for full Flare coverage – including the full programme, interviews with artists and updates! Get excited!

Watch This Space presents: Doodle Session, Episode 1 – with teethlikescrewdrivers

Our new Doodle Session series is a deep dive into the creative process of some of our favourite artists. We sit down and let the creative energy flow as they draw, doodle and mark a page, all while we ask a few questions and explore what makes them tick, the role drawing plays, and how it all comes together.

Episode one of our Doodle Sessions features none other than teethlikescrewdrivers – whose energy is evident in the way he annotates our conversation with drawings, from school chairs to pencils, self-portraits to phrases – check it out and get inspired!

Keep an eye out for future episodes on our YouTube channel!

Meep – Trials @ Fibre Gallery, Oct 4 – Nov 8, 2024

Kophie a.k.a Meep One is such a prominent part of the Ōtautahi and wider Aotearoa scene that it is hard to believe she has not staged a solo exhibition of work – until now! Trials is the artist’s first foray into a solo gallery exhibition, fittingly staged during the 2024 Christchurch Hip Hop and hosted by Fibre Gallery, key connections for Meep, whose work is rooted in the influence of graffiti and hip hop culture and her proud bi-cultural Dutch and Samoan heritage. While gaining widespread attention for her public mural work, Meep is well-versed in studio work, from painting to design and even fashion and jewellery. Trials will focus on her imaginative creative output without the restrictions of public commission conditions. A fiercely principled individual, Meep’s art is always imbued with meanings and discourses drawn from her experiences and observations, even when it appears more surreal than topical. We sat down with Kophie to chat about Trials, the process of bringing it all together, hip hop culture, subversive influences, and a number of other topics…

Your upcoming exhibition, Trials, will be staged at Fibre Gallery in October – I was surprised that this will be your first solo exhibition, for someone with your body of work and profile, it’s been a long time coming…

Yeah, I’ve always wanted to do it, I just haven’t really had the guts! It’s been terrifying because I really don’t like being the centre of attention or anything like that. But art is an important part of my life, and it has been ever since I was born really, so I’m happy to finally do it. I’ve wanted to do a show with a big research project behind it for ages, but it’s just too much and it’s hard to get funding for that scale, so for this show I’m focussed on painting stuff that I want to paint in the moment, experimenting and just showing it really…

There is so much work that goes into organising a show, the logistics of funding it and organising a venue, the promotion and all those things, but an exhibition also needs to have something to say, and it takes time to develop a body of work out of formative ideas. The fact that this has taken a while to manifest, does that mean you feel more confident in terms of what you’re saying?

Yeah, and I feel like once I get my first show out of the way, then I won’t feel so stressed about doing it again. In the past I have put too much pressure on myself to make it perfect, but I have just let that go and just made art.

Trials is taking place as part of the 2024 Christchurch Hip Hop Summit. The influence of hip hop has always been a strong element of your work, how much did street culture, graffiti and hip hop inspire this exhibition?

One of my first introductions to graffiti was seeing the wall at Waltham Park from the first Hip Hop Summit in Christchurch, and the guys from the Summit team have always been supportive of me. I was supposed to do one for last year’s Summit, but I wasn’t able to secure funding, so they’re kind of making me do it this year! Hip hop and graffiti are a massive part of my inspiration, and so is street culture in general, like skateboarding. I wasn’t good at skateboarding, but I was around the culture. Growing up in Wanaka, it’s very outdoorsy, so things like snowboarding were also an influence. Then we moved to Christchurch and seeing all the graffiti when I was a teenager was a big part of my growing up. Once I was transfixed with graffiti and art, apart from non-stop drawing, I would always either bunk or walk after school to the South Library and pour over all the graffiti, art and skateboarding books they had there at the time. When I was at school, I would just sit in class and basically draw on myself all day. A lot of the stuff in Trials is inspired by that feeling I had when I was younger and seeing graffiti for the first time and how the world was back then without social media. I think there is a nostalgia for that time, most days I just want to throw it all out the window and just play in the street like I did when I was a kid. It just seems like the world now is completely different…

I assume the show’s title refers to the trials and tribulations that you’ve been through, but it also suggests the concept of criminality that is associated with graffiti, the challenge of transitioning graffiti into a career in the arts, and perhaps the trials of modern-day life, especially the impact of technology and social media. Was the title intentionally so wide-reaching in its suggestions?

Yeah definitely, when I was trying to think of a name, I wanted something that had multiple meanings. The name evokes the trials I have been through to get to where I am now. I guess I had a hard upbringing, but despite dropping out of school, I was able to get an education and then to do what I do now, I’m very grateful of how far I’ve come and how I’ve gotten through all that. Trials also reflects the fact that I wanted to do a lot of experimentation in this body of work. I’ve had so many ideas for so long and I just haven’t had time or the ability to take time from work and focus on painting. It takes a lot of time and money, which is proving to be difficult even right now. I start at 9am and then finish at 9pm and I’m still working on the same painting…

Obviously, there are a lot of very personal aspects embedded in the show, but something I admire in your work is that when you are painting real people, including your self-portraits, you imbue your subjects with a symbolic quality, a feeling of being an archetype rather than an explicitly specific person…

I like to create the whole character. I don’t like doing realism, it’s not something that I really enjoy. It’s just a skill rather than being able to use creativity and imagination. So, for this show there is a lot more of my cartoony stuff, abstracted and surrealist stuff, subversive stuff. There are a lot of hidden messages. I find straight ahead realism quite boring because you are just painting what’s there. I want to create characters from scratch and give them back stories that reflect how I was feeling in that moment or something that inspired me. I doodle all the time, so I’ve taken a lot of stuff that I have drawn and remember how I was feeling and then I try to turn them into better works…

What does the process look like? How do you go about taking an initial drawing that captures an idea and turning it into a more polished painting?

Working on an iPad makes it a lot easier because I just take a photo of a random sketch and refine it. It’s easier to play with colours and stuff before I paint it. But other times, I just start drawing on a piece of wood or canvas and then I just paint it. So, some of them have a refined sketch, some of them don’t. I’m mostly playing with oil and acrylics on ply, which is my favourite surface. I’m largely using recycled ply that I’ve cut into shapes, it’s reminiscent of some of my paste-ups in the past, big cut out figures, but they’re on ply and nicely painted. There are probably only going to be two real portraits, one inspired by me, because it’s hard to get a reference photo of someone else and I don’t want to use AI, and one of Callum [Kophie’s partner, who is currently finishing a music production degree in Australia] because I miss him! But in both cases, they’re not just portraits, they’re abstracted and stylised, with stories behind them.

You mentioned the presence of subversive elements in your work. How important is working in the studio for the expression of subversion when you are increasingly creating commissioned public works where creative freedom is lessened? Does that become part of that nostalgic element that you’re looking for as well?

Yeah, one hundred per cent. I feel like a lot of my big murals are be watered down a lot because of the client relationship, so this show does take me back to my roots. I’ve always been outspoken and political. I care about issues, so that’s always been a central part of my work. In my first year of study, we had to draw a portrait of a friend. He told me he worked in the meat works, so I drew him like Hannibal Lecter as a joke, and I made this big melting-globe-world-monster thing, and a fish made of scrap materials symbolizing a radioactive fish after the Fukushima disaster, which had just occurred. I guess it comes from the influence of satire, political art, like Obey, and the likes of Adbusters. Skate graphics as well, they have a history of being subversive and they definitely influenced me. That stuff’s always been cool to me. I played a lot of video games growing up and they always had funny subversive stuff, like in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, there was a Sasquatch character…

I like that with games now, where you see custom builds and skins, so you’ll have these relatively normal worlds, and then, all of a sudden, they’re populated by giant bananas. The more ridiculous something is, the more it reveals the underlying absurdity of what we perceive as normal…

I like the balance of silly but serious at the same time, it makes you think. All my works are very topical in one way or another, some are just more obvious than others. I feel like a big thing in my work is the impending doom of climate change and how we are all heading towards a fiery death, but no one seems to care. It’s just like head in the sand stuff…

It’s that whole This Is Fine meme, the dog sitting in a flaming room…

That’s exactly the aesthetic, that whole ‘I’m fine’ thing…

We have discussed some of the themes and subject, but is this body of work a progression in terms of visual style?

I feel like it’s me being true to my original style. If you look at my old workbooks, I drew the same sort of stuff but just way worse, so it is an evolution of that. I haven’t really been able to paint big versions of my sketches. I do a little bit in my graffiti when I have enough paint, but not as much as I would like.

It feels like a balancing act of how to express yourself in different spaces…

I guess it comes back to the duality of doing illegal stuff while also trying to go to meetings and be professional. I always feel so fake in a way. But I look at businesspeople who are doing horrendous shit and they don’t bat an eyelid. I’m a genuine person that sticks to their guns, so I just feel really weird about living a double life. I don’t know how to act half the time…

How do you think the idea of a more genuine expression relates to the broader context of hip hop? At its heart, hip hop is very much a DIY culture, but it also has been through so many incarnations; you had the earlier stages of hip hop, street parties and making something from little or nothing, then you had the ‘get cash’ and bling kind of attitude of the nineties onwards, that hustle ethos, and now hip hop has evolved into something different again as it is more commercial today. What hip hop ethos do you identify with most strongly?

I guess hip hop has become very commercialised nowadays and I never want to be a commercial sort of artist. I just want to be someone who makes art about things that are happening in the present moment. I like a lot of underground music.With the Full Steam Ahead crew, we wanted to try and incorporate all the hip hop elements. Even though we mainly do graffiti and rap at the moment, we do have B-Boys in the crew. I love the origins of hip hop. Street wear, clothing and fashion is also a big part of my inspiration. When I was a kid, a lot of the time I would just draw the different outfits that I dreamed of having because I had to wear second hand clothes. It wasn’t cool to wear second hand clothes then! I would draw all sorts of cool outfits. I’d draw girls and then cut them out and make them different outfits like paper dolls. I thought I was going to be a fashion designer! Drawing my characters with cool clothes and accessories is a central part of my art, I guess. The t-shirt as an important platform for messages is another idea I really like. When I was painting recently, I was thinking about all the clothes I had when I was a teenager and stuff, I had this cool t-shirt that said like ‘Big Brother is Watching’ from the 2000s, why did I get rid of it! I want to paint it now, just thinking about that!

That captures the DIY element of hip hop for me, it was created by young people who didn’t have access to things so they made use of what they could, whether it was street corners or subway trains…

That’s definitely a central part of my work and my whole life really. I’ve always made stuff that I didn’t have. I’d make clothes for my dolls from scratch or like second hand fabrics. I just did it out of necessity really. Even now, like I built a fence at home when we needed one. I make do with what I have, I upcycle things, I learn to make and fix what I can. I have always been a DIY type. I’d cut out posters from free magazines when I was a kid, take the posters and cut them up and collage them and poster my room with them. I don’t know, it’s always been like that. I made the hat I’m wearing because I was playing the video game Harry Potter Legacy, and I liked the hat one of the characters was wearing. I was like, I need it, so I made it. My art has always been from second hand stuff or acquired items. Right now, I’m using recycled ply because I had it. It comes down to my ethos of not buying new things for the good of sustainability. Everything nowadays is so crappily made anyway.

The clothing your subjects wear is important, whether a t-shirt with a message or your works that explore Pasifika identity and traditional clothing, these are a reflection of your background and the way fashion has always been so important to hip hop, punk, any kind of street culture…

Yeah, I made the weirdest outfits when I was a teenager. I had a big emo phase and a Boy George phase, like an eighties phase, a gangster phase, haha. I think fashion plays a big part in personal expression, so it is important in my artwork. Especially drawing things that I couldn’t get or creating my own fashion designs…

I want to see some photos of Boy George era Kophie! You mentioned your crew Full Steam Ahead, but of course you are now also a member of TMD [The Most Dedicated]. How big an impact has that had on your work, knowing you are part of a globally celebrated creative collective? Does that bring pressure, or does it just reinforce your self-belief?

I mean, I think about it every single day because it blows my mind that I’m in TMD! I’m so inspired by everyone in the crew. When I was younger, I would use my friend’s computer, because I didn’t have one at home, just to look at pictures of TMD productions and stuff, so it blows my mind really. It did give me the push in confidence to have my own exhibition, because I wanted to in the past, but I was worried that no one would really come or turn up, but I have gotten to the point now that I don’t really care anymore. I am also not making art to for the intention of anyone buying or anything like that, I’m making it because it’s stuff that I’ve always wanted to make and it’s a reflection of myself. Although it is all for sale!

That’s really important I think, because it is quite rare. For a lot of people an exhibition is a way to sell work, to make money, so to have an exhibition where you can be more honest in terms of what you want to say and you can make work that’s important to you, it must make the whole process more satisfying on a personal level…

Yeah, as I mentioned, I wanted to do a whole research aspect and have detailed stories behind each work, but I didn’t have the time and funds to do all that. But it feels more freeing to just do what I feel like doing in the moment and do whatever is topical or influenced by whatever podcast I’m listening to, or if I’m angry or sad or happy, then make something based around that. I feel like it takes the pressure off, and I feel like it gives it more authenticity…

Do you have a defined idea of how the whole show will look?

Sort of, but not really. I’m not sure if they will all really match or anything, it’s just like my brain spilling onto a painting. But I have four paintings so far, and it’s quite a big space so I’ll see what happens. It was quite a short turn around, they asked me a couple of months ago, so I guess I’ve had four months to get it all ready, which sounds like a long time, but it’s not really, especially when you’re trying to do a hundred other things. Paintings take so much longer than anything else. But yeah, I’ll see what I can do!

Who do you want to thank?

Red and Tommy from the Hip Hop Summit and YCD [Youth & Cultural Development], Nina from Fibre Gallery for making me do it, Selina and the FSA and TMD crews, and of course, Callum!

What do people need to know about Trials?

The show will open on the 4th of October at Fibre Gallery on Cashel Street, where my mural Navigation is on the side of the building. I think it opens at 6pm. We have DJ INFARED playing. I might bring some Speights…

I hope you arrive in your best Boy George outfit!

I may or may not show up!

Trials opens 6pm, Friday October 4th at Fibre Gallery, 285 Cashel Street – Follow Kophie on social media for more details…

Open For Business – Rinley’s Writer Supplies

As the city’s newest spot to stock up on paint, Rinley’s Writer Supplies has quickly been established as the go-to for the local graffiti community. That comes as no surprise when it is the brainchild of a veteran painter who knows the local scene and what people want, ensuring Rinley’s is truly a store for writers. We visited Rinley’s small-but-well-stocked Sydenham location and caught up with owner Noose to chat about his graffiti experiences, how Rinley’s came into existence and the realities of selling (and stocking) spray paint…

One thing I’ve learned from meeting a lot of graffiti writers is to never to expect what someone is going to be like…

Hard out! I’ve had that here. I don’t know if you know the dude who paints mushrooms, but I met him recently and he was like, I don’t associate with anyone who paints, don’t say who I am or what I look like or whatever! I was so surprised. I was asking him about whether he paints the mushrooms where you would actually find them, and he was like, yeah, kind of, it was a little bit of a road map, which I thought was quite cool. He was a really interesting dude.

There are painters who have been deep in the culture for years and then there’s those who get into it almost independently, who subvert the traditions a little…

I think the scene has changed dramatically as well. I was definitely an asshole, but that doesn’t get you anywhere, it just stagnates your actual growth as an artist when you’re like, that guy went over me, I’m just going to go hard out and make sure I go over them. It means you don’t paint anything good, you’re like, what’s the point, you’re going to get gone over anyway…

Was your introduction to graffiti through hip-hop culture or through another influence?

Skateboarding bro, just being down at the skate park. That was when the older generation were painting walls down there all the time. I was down there every day bunking school and I’d see them painting all the time and I’d try and talk to them. The reception was very gangster and like, what do you write, Toy? It was quite aggressive. So, I was like, OK, that’s how you have to be, you have to have beef to be someone. There was also the whole YouTube explosion around the same time. I started in 2007 and that was when movies like State Your Name and a bunch of big New York graf videos had just came out and had the attitude of, if you buy your paint you’re a toy, and graffiti is a full contact sport. So, I was like, you have to be able to fight and do all these other stupid little things, which is so dumb looking back on it now.

Various artists, 2021

I don’t know if you’d agree, but my feeling is that there are definitely benefits to a less rigid view, a willingness to change and go with the changes…

People like that get better so much quicker because they’re nice people to paint with, because they have opportunities to paint with people who are better than them and they want to paint with them. But if you’re an asshole, everyone will be like, I don’t really want to paint with that guy, he’s going to cause drama, and it’s going to affect the thing that I’ve got going on…

Starting in 2007, you have obviously had experience from both the pre-quake and the post-quake scenes, how do you see the difference?

Pre-quake, if you didn’t have a good tag and you didn’t have a good throw-up, you weren’t allowed to piece. It wasn’t going to happen. Your stuff wouldn’t last, you had to build your name to that point. You also couldn’t paint freights at the time, because of the fear of FILTH and other crews like FAT, they very much held down that scene. There were real repercussions for messing with the thing that they had going on. But post-quake a lot of those dudes left, so this younger generation had a bit of a free for all, there weren’t these scary dudes holding a tight grip on the scene. Obviously, the amount of abandons (empty buildings) as well meant it was just a free for all, it was crazy.

The city was fucked, so people were happy that there was something going on. For years there were three pubs in the city you could go to late at night, there was the Town Ball, that tent one, maybe Dux Live in Addington, so it was pretty grim… Any kind of colour that you added to that was seen as good, you could just paint like there were no laws.

Do you think that environment led to an ongoing change in terms of the perception of graffiti or do you think that bias is still there? Ōtautahi has this reputation for our murals – graffiti has fed into that so much and yet it doesn’t necessarily get the same shine, do you think that’s improved from what it was?

I feel like the level of graffiti that was painted pre-quake went down post-quake. Pre-quake you had the likes of Dcypher, Lurq, USK, Sender, the Wall of Fame by the Colombo Street over-bridge. Then there was the big buff that happened with the train tracks and a lot of that was lost, so it just turned into a tagging and throw-up spot and people stopped piecing and doing productions for quite some time. It wasn’t really until some of those festivals happened post-quake that it was, like, oh shit, we’re getting good recognition for the bombing that everyone’s doing, but we can’t compete at all with the piecing…

That echoes what happened in Auckland with the Rugby World Cup buff in 2011 and years of history were wiped away and that vacuum was filled with a focus on bombing and tagging rather than piecing…

It opened up a spot. It was like alright, those sick pieces and burners and stuff are all gone, now it’s our time to take that spot, let’s just do something quick and fast, like a big stomper or something to claim that spot to use it later to do something. As opposed to being like, shit, let’s do something as good as that or attempt something as good as that…

What names stand out for you in that post-quake era?

Definitely BC crew, JFK crew, Ikarus obviously, Yikes. I feel like When Dcypher came back it was on for DTR. Freak and all those guys were still doing amazing stuff, but you know, its Dcypher, he gets things going…

You talk about JFK, who were super active post-quake – you are a member of that crew, right?

Yep, I am. When JFK was formed, you had to be painting quite heavily to be in it, but there was also a lot of thought about where you were situated in the city; I got put in because I was in Addington, Deok was put in because he was in Hornby… It just made going all city very easy, so that’s why it covered the city quite quickly, there was a bunch of dudes in New Brighton, a bunch of dudes in the east, there was a bunch of dudes out west…

Who else stands out?

Post-quake, 100% Skum from JFK, he was just insane. He was the PK before PK. I remember Skum, Germ, Jot, all those dudes, were going hardcore. Slepa, I think he was kind of going hard pre-quake and kind of died off just after the quake, but yeah, all those dudes were going crazy…

Fast forward a decade or so and we are here today sitting inside your store Rinley’s Writing Supplies, how did Rinley’s come about?

I got caught two years ago and basically, I couldn’t paint Noose anymore, they knew who I was. I had just had a kid. I was going through the whole court thing, where I was put on a year’s good behaviour. At the same time, I was also getting some legal work, and I was saving all the money from that because I wanted to try to do a project, like try to get legal walls for people and to find people new places to paint, do that whole thing. I was getting more jobs doing Chorus cabinets and saving all that money. So, I had bunch of money sitting there and I was like, I can probably open a shop with what I’ve got. I had already thought of the name Rinley’s, I was going to make markers and paint. The name at first was Rinley’s Black and Chrome, it was just going to be black mops, chrome mops. But that sort of changed over time. I messaged a bunch of paint suppliers, shopped around and was in chats with Montana and they were just so on the ball with replying to emails. They were so good to deal with, I was like, this is like a no-brainer, I’ll just take the risk and do it. I sent them a whole bunch of money and three months later all this paint showed up…

Going back to that idea of racking paint to be a real writer, how have your personal experiences shaped Rinley’s and how you have gone about setting the store up?

I wasn’t a racker. When I started the cages came about that made it harder. I was just on the cusp where you could rack from The Warehouse when I was starting. I was just buying paint, and I was buying shit loads of it. I was spending basically my whole wage on paint at one point…

Where were you buying paint?

I was using Embassy hard out, but when Ironlak went, it was a matter of necessity to shop around, so I ended up using Gordon Harris for years. Before I started Rinley’s, I was using Tom’s Emporium.

Tom’s has stocked Montana, you talked about how Montana as a company were really good to deal with, but it also has a strong reputation for quality…

Yeah, Embassy had Montana years and years ago, when I first started, and I loved it. The smell is nostalgic, and its good paint. But honestly, the main reason I chose Montana is how good they are to deal with. Their paint is as good as any other paint you can get, but the level of service and communication when you’re sending large amounts of money overseas is second to none compared to some of the other places. They see a small place like this, and they see the potential. They don’t see it like just some small fry who only want a small amount of paint compared to someone else.

You’ve started Rinley’s at a manageable scale in terms of the shop itself, but you’ve got a big range of cans in a small space!

I think what was happening with a lot of the paint shops was that they were looking at four different, say, burgundies, and they looked at the middle tone and they go fuck, it is close enough to the other ones, let’s just get that and we will step down to the next shade, whereas artists still want those off shades. For someone like Yikes or Dcypher, who do crazy technical pieces, those slight changes in shade mean a lot. For me just painting pieces and stuff, it doesn’t mean as much to me, I can go from a burgundy to a bright red pretty easily, but it’s just like a necessity really, like there’s just nothing better than having a full range that you can just look at. The other thing was when you go into a lot of paint shops or even skate shops to buy paint, they’re all behind a cage. It’s almost like you’re burdening the staff to get the cage open, you feel like you are being watched and you can’t be trusted. That’s why I’ve got this set up, where the door is shut at all times, but I’ll let you in, you pick your own shit, you can compare colours, you don’t have any other awkward encounters. I just make this shopping experience better, because painters aren’t all deviants, a lot are quite successful in their jobs, they don’t deserve to be watched like a hawk to buy paint…

Rinley’s Writer Supplies

Which is all an off shoot of essentially criminalising spray paint…

Which was the stupidest law anyway! People can buy all these pens, there’s no law on the pens. You can go fill up a weed sprayer full of paint, you could go get a fire extinguisher right now from Bunnings, fill it with paint and have the most destructive tool you could possibly have, but for some reason spray paint was targeted. I’ve read the legislation around the time that it was written (early 2000s), I think the perception was that graffiti writers are all lower-class kids, so let’s make it hard for like 15/16-year-olds, not actually knowing that many of them were fully grown men. Which is stupid because they would have seen that in the court papers…

With the rise of urban contemporary art, people are using spray paint as a part of a much broader creative practice as well, but the product is stigmatised by putting it behind cages and making it an awkward experience for people to have to go and get something unlocked and then be watched…

Well, the other crazy thing with the law was that if you are walking around the street at 12 o’clock in the daytime with a bag full of spray paint and you got pulled up by the cops, you’ve got a legitimate alibi as to why you have that spray paint, you do that at 12 o’clock at night and you’re a tagger. Who is to say that you’re not a night worker? I’ll open late for people, like if you want to buy paint late at night, holla out, we’ll sort a time out and you can come and grab it. A lot of the dudes that do come in, they work late, they don’t get the chance to come into paint shops during the week. Not all of them are out painting graf, some are just using it for canvases or whatever they want to use it for…

It’s interesting, I know of a few people who have gone into studying criminal law or things like that, because of experiences associated with painting graffiti. Were you already aware of some of those things from being a writer, or is that stuff that you kind of dived into because you knew that opening the store would potentially bring up some of those issues?

I kind of knew a bunch about the laws just from being caught before, but then I obviously had to look into it from a business point of view; am I liable for selling someone spray paint and then they go out and do a throw up and chuck a Rinley’s tag alongside it? Am I going to get in the shit for that? Which is why you need things like public liability insurance and stuff like that. I mean, if that was to happen, they could take you to court and it could get thrown out, but you’ve just wasted thousands of dollars on lawyer’s fees just to try and argue point which should be pretty straight forward…

Do you have excess stock in storage?

Everything is out at the moment. We will have stuff in storage from this next order, especially in the Montana Gold range, because this (the current stock) is only half the Gold range. We’re doubling the next order in the Gold range. It was just a wee bit of a concern because Gold hadn’t been here for so long, I was worried that people would be like, it’s a dollar fifty more than Montana Black cans, The people that have used it have all said the same thing: the cans go longer, the coverage is better, they’re easier to use because they are low pressure… Even Dcypher said all the stuff he did for Project Legit using Gold has held up insanely well, and that’s like 15 years ago now. So, for people that are wanting to use aerosol for large-scale murals, that’s the shit to use.

Rinley’s Writer Supplies

What’s your time frame for re-stocking? Have you figured out the best way to keep well stocked?

Because it’s coming from overseas, it’s like three and a half months. I am lucky, my partner is a fucking genius when it comes to running a business how its supposed to be run, she’s a superstar at that kind of thing, so yeah, she’s got that side covered. We’ve just placed another order, a massive order as well, to try and time with summer.

You ultimately have a very specific audience, so I assume it’s less about growth as it is about building customer loyalty and a solid reputation…

I’ve had probably a message every other day asking do you ship? do you ship? But at the moment, I’m not interested in shipping because I’m concerned that if I do start shipping, locals come in and they are like, oh shit, man you’ve sold out really quick and it’s like, yeah, I’ve sent a 500 can order to Nelson or whatever. I want to cover local first… and put Christchurch on the map internationally as best as I can…

You’ve got more than just paint as well – tell me about some of the other products you stock…

I pretty much only import stuff that I like! We’ve got a range of markers. The reason I got the silver Uni Paint PX-30s is just because they are the best silver marker you can get. The Sakura Magic’s are just a good black marker and then the Sakura Solid Paint Sticks are cool because they are a little bit different. We have various mops from Krink to Fadebomb and eggshell stickers too.

I see you also have some books, some collectibles and some art for sale as well…

When I had opened, I didn’t have a lot of things up other than the spray paint, the caps and the markers, so a few friends were like, I’ve got some shit that I want to sell, can I put it in your shop? And I was like yeah definitely! It was pretty empty up there, so a mate’s put up his Transformers VHS tapes he wants to sell, he had a custom shoe he wanted to sell, Skum from JFK has like a whole bunch of random buses and canvases that were done in like 2015 or 2016, so we’re selling those, and then the books. I got Fresh Press from the guys up north, and then just like a few other books that I had collected over the years that I’ve read probably 10 times and won’t read again…

You’ve got Flip the Script by Christian P. Acker, I love that book…

Yeah, it’s a bloody good book. The Mike Giant book is really interesting as well. I look at that quite a lot now, just because it reminds me a lot of old Christchurch graffiti. I’m not sure whether or not it was the Art Crimes page from years ago that he was uploading to, and people were taking influence from, but it’s kind of crazy how similar his style and even some of the colour combos and walls that he did remind me of old Christchurch pieces, like how the letters hit the ground… I also listen to his podcasts and stuff and from the sounds of it, he was sharing photo stacks around the world with people quite regularly, so whether or not those stacks ended up here, it was an interesting time back then, the internet was around but it wasn’t used the way it is now…

Having been part of the graffiti scene for so long, does opening Rinley’s feel like a new phase in your graffiti story?

I started in 2007 and I really didn’t want to be coming into my 20th year painting not having done anything, so I wanted to do something at least. I fucked myself getting caught, so I couldn’t do anything impressive graf wise, I wasn’t going to risk getting caught again, having young kids and a missus that was fucking stressing out, so Rinley’s was the answer…

Having been caught, what are your thoughts on how the city approaches graffiti?

Every time they like have some new programme that will stop tagging, they never work! The only thing that does work is giving people space to paint legally. I think the Council now, especially with people like Mel Hillier at the Graffiti Projects team, she understands that, and she can see now that there is a group of people that do just want to paint good shit. They might not necessarily want to go onto painting three-storey high buildings with crazy murals, but they just want to paint nice pieces, they want to chill, to be able to have beers or whatever just down at the wall and just make a day of it…

You know, the city has all these places where people can be physically active. There’s never a problem about basketball courts or pump tracks or skate parks, why is it such a big leap to have a place where someone can paint a wall?

As someone who’s fucking shit at sport, shit at skateboarding, I did it for years and got nowhere with it, the one thing that you are kind of alright at, painting pieces, you’re shunned for!

When you frame it as a chill thing, where you can spend a day with a group of mates painting, having some beers, having a good time, where’s the threat in that?

Everyone that comes past and sees you painting, I’ve never had a bad interaction when we’ve been painting pieces. As soon as the sun goes down though, that’s where the perception changes, even if you are doing the exact same thing after dark, people go, tagger! Which is crazy, just paint in the day and you’re right!

Problem solved! Thanks man – lastly, when can people shop at Rinley’s?

Nine to five, Monday to Thursday, nine to six, Friday, and then nine until twelve, Saturday and Sunday. But from October I’m probably going to be doing appointment only across the board as we are having a baby. But I’ll be low on paint by that time anyway, so I don’t think it will be a massive problem…

And people can find out more on the socials?

Yep! Follow us on @rinleys on Instagram and Threads!

Reclaimed – A Pop-Up Show by Jacob Root (Distranged Design)

Jacob Root, a.k.a Distranged Design is proud to present Reclaimed – a pop-up exhibition of new works on old surfaces at a temporary space at 4 Cranford Street, opening 6pm Friday, July 12.

Reclaimed will present works painted on up-cycled materials, including pallets, window frames, and used timber, providing a fitting textural surface for his exploration of aerosol – the artist moving beyond traditional stencil approaches and into freehand spraying, thick brush stroke portraits and experimental stencil techniques. We asked Jacob a couple of questions about the show…

Stencilling can be interesting as a technique, you kind of need to find new approaches as you refine the process – what new influences have you developed for Reclaimed and how did they come about?

I think the main influence of trying new techniques was travel, but also the amount of murals I’ve done over the last couple of years where I didn’t have the opportunity or time to cut stencils, so I had to get better at freehand spraying. After it started clicking I just really enjoyed it more, as it’s more hands on painting rather than cutting stencils for hours on end. Also the fact my hand and arm cramps and aches for hours after cutting stencils, it didn’t seem like a long term plan as my only way of creating artworks.

Material surfaces are really important for stencilling and by extension aerosol, too, how much work has to go into making the ‘canvasses’ for Reclaimed?

So far a lot has gone into messing around and rebuilding items, which I’m really loving. Driving around scavenging items that I can beautify by rebuilding, sanding, then painting on them has been incredibly satisfying, and the edginess and grit of the canvases I’ve found compliments my style. I’ve got a lot more to do in the next couple of weeks leading up to the show though!

What is the location for Reclaimed and how did that opportunity come about?

The location is 4 Cranford Street, it’s a new build by Duogroup. Duogroup are the building owners of the wall that Rightbrain and I painted our Sir Ed Hillary mural on, so I decided to get in contact with them and they were kind enough to jump at the idea and let me use their space.

Reclaimed is made possible by the support of Duogroup and the Inkster Company.

Make sure to catch Reclaimed – opening 6pm, Friday, July 12 and open until Sunday, July 14.

Daken – Garage Sale with Lucky Dips @ Absolution

Kiwis love a good garage sale. Maybe it is the curiosity. Maybe it is the potential nostalgia. Maybe it is the chance to rifle through someone’s discarded belongings in the hope of finding a unique treasure. Maybe we just love the thought of a bargain that cuts out the middle man.

Ōtautahi creative Daken, known for his bootleg toys and funky, humorous illustrative style, is drawing on the power of garage sales to inspire his forthcoming show Garage Sale with Lucky Dips, opening May 13th at Absolution. Daken describes the show as an exhibition of nostalgia, Kiwiana, trash and treasures, all presented through the lens of a good old fashioned garage sale. We caught up with Daken ahead of the show to find out what we can expect and how the idea came to fruition…

I know you are always busy making, creating and generally tinkering, but when was your last solo show?
I had my first solo show way back in 2021, on my birthday actually, which was pretty exciting. That show was almost exclusively a bootleg toy show (with the exception of a couple paintings). I had only been in the toy-making scene for a year at that stage so I wanted to really push what I was doing in that space. I feel like Garage Sale is more integrated with everything else I do, coming together for a more varied experience.

How did the idea for Garage Sale come to you? I know you have an Instagram profile that focusses on handmade garage sale signs…
Absolution asked if I woukld like to have a show there (shout out to Rochelle!). I always have show concepts and ideas popping up in my head. The Garage Sale idea had been fermenting for a wee while, and given the opportunity at Absolution, it felt right. I do indeed run an Instagram profile that posts pictures of garage sale signs, I started it back in 2019. Garage sales have always had a special place in my heart. Having a background in graffiti, the idea of guerrilla marketing through a kind of typographic graffiti folk art really interested me. No one sign is the same, they are always made with random materials, and the focus is to just get the message across: ‘Come here, on this date, to look through my old crap and give me cash for it.’ I felt at the time that I needed to document them because, like graffiti, they are such a temporary thing. The Instagram page (@garagesails) was a big seed that helped lead to this show.

What can we expect to find at Garage Sale with Lucky Dips?
A Lot of trash, treasure and nostalgia, haha! The show started with the idea of garage sales but slowly evolved into sub genres of nostalgia and identity through the lens of Kiwiana. So, you can expect to see all of these ideas drawn on paper, painted on items, displayed on thrifted clothes, made into toys from other recycled and broken toys and much more…

It sounds like Garage Sale will reflect your diverse practice…
I like to think of myself as a jack-of all-trades, master-of-none when it comes to my work. Jumping between materials, mediums and ideas has always been my thing. I use the name Daken’s Emporium because I can’t seem to stick to one thing. The idea of emporiums and garage sales seems to fit the way my work in general is very eclectic in nature. I get an odd feeling, dare I say a sense of magic, when there is a culmination of things that come together to make a bigger narrative. I love how everything has its own history, has a story of when it was made and how it came to be in some place with other things that can be so different, somehow all winding up in the same place… Did I just describe the human experience?! One of the biggest challenges that kicks at the anxieties in the back of my head is it all not working. I look at my contemporaries and other artists and wish that I could pick something and stick with it. But the truth is, trying new things is always fun and exciting for me. So defining my own personal style and voice within so many avenues of work, while challenging, is in the end, who I am.

Do you have final message for people who might want to come and see Garage Sale?
For those that intend on coming to the show, have a fun time! I hope I have managed to capture at least a small fraction of that magic I talked about, even for a short period before it’s all separated and taken down, just like a garage sale sign. Also, come say what’s up! I would love to chat about the work, hear your thoughts, and discuss who you think would win in a fight between Swamp Thing and Superman! Oh, and don’t forget to pick up a lucky dip!

Daken’s Garage Sale with Lucky Dips opens on Monday 13th May, 6pm – 8pm, at Absolution Tattoo and Piercing, The Arts Centre – Te Matatiki Toi Ora

The Paste-Up Project – with Mark Catley

The fourth and final artist in the Paste-Up Project is Mark Catley – one of the city’s longest tenured paste-up artists. Mark’s nostalgic vintage toy paste ups have been a familiar site across Christchurch for many years and as such he was a natural contributor to this project. For his installation, Mark continued his toy parade, this time with huge images of Barbie, G.I. Joe, He-Man and more circling the bollard like a line-up awaiting identification. Catley’s work evokes nostalgia, warm recollections of childhood favourites, but it also illuminates the darker side, from the ridiculous body shapes and reinforced gender stereotypes to the problematic materials used in production. We chatted with Mark and dived into his experiences pasting art around the city and the Paste-Up Project specifically, and, of course, a specific Star Wars character…

It seems like you have been pasting art up around Ōtautahi for a long time, do you remember when you started?

Well, according to my Instagram page, it was 2015. I only worked that out based on when the photos were taken of the big Batman and Robin faces opposite Victoria Square, it’s some fancy restaurant now…

The Permit Room…

Yeah, that’s it!

So, what was the inspiration?

Well, a lot of people were doing it at the time. After the earthquakes, things had changed, and I just thought I’d give it a go. I honestly don’t even remember now. I would’ve had a friend print them out for me. I was doing my insurance work at the time, and I would get emails about toy figures and I would open them up and put them on my computer monitor and I just started taking photos of the faces of Batman and Robin and then I went home and made them bigger and I just pasted them up. At first, I didn’t actually know anyone doing it personally, so I just had to Google how to do it myself. I remember going to one of those Instructables websites about how to make wheat-paste glue. I just used the first recipe I found and I pretty much stick with it even now…

Did it always make sense as the medium to use to put your art out in the streets?

Well yeah, I mean, I’d never tried using spray cans or anything like that and I figured this was the quickest way to get it up there. Then by chance, the first time I put them up, I think it would have been the Batman head, I remember walking back to my car and turning around to have a look, thinking that’s pretty cool, and there’s some guy yelling out to me: “Hey you!” I was like, oh shit! I mean, it wasn’t that late, it would have been daylight savings, so it had only just got dark, and this guy shouted out to me. I turned around and I just replied “Yeah?” And he asked me: “Did you just do that over there?” I said “Yeah”, and he said it was pretty cool, but he wanted my details, and I just gave them to him. I told him my name, I gave him my cell phone number, and then nothing happened. It wasn’t until six months or a year later that The Press ran a story about this mysterious street artist and it turned out the first guy was a reporter and after the first story was posted on Stuff, that reporter spoke to another reporter and they knew who I was straight away. So, someone from The Press phoned me and said: “Oh, so was this you?” And stupidly I just said, “Yeah it was”, being the good boy I am. I remember hanging up and thinking, shit! So, I rang them back and said: “Hey, why don’t you just not put that it’s me and have a bit of fun with this?” But he was like, “Nah, it’s too late.” So my dream of being a mysterious artist was washed away…

You were never able to become the Banksy figure of mystery…

Exactly, I never really had enough time to give myself a cool name or anything.

I don’t think I’m creative enough to come up with a good name…

I’ve got a good name now, a podcast gave it to me: BosskCat, because Bossk is my favourite Star Wars character and my last name is Catley, so BosskCat. They even made a picture of TopCat, but with Bossk’s head stuck on it. That was some guys in England who thought of it…

You have become known for your annual May the 4th Star Wars bonanza, has that become something that you look forward to each year?

I really like to do it. It’s just a bit of fun and I imagine even if no one else cared, I would just put them up for myself for fun. It must have been a few years ago now, but I remember it was hosing down on the night of May the third, it was stupid weather, you know, there was no way anyway should have gone out putting up paste ups, although some of those pieces have lasted for years. Anyway, one of them was over in Lyttelton, on the old fire station, it was a Princess Leia paste up, but there were about 10 or 12 Russian sailors all hiding under that spot, with bottles of vodka and a plastic bag of cooked fish. They were just drinking and pulling out bits of fish meat to eat. The smell was revolting. I was annoyed because that was the spot, you know, I’d worked out a few days earlier that was the spot, and because it was raining I thought no one would be there. Anyway, I half tried to explain what I was doing but they had no idea what I was saying, they just laughed, so I just quickly did it and got out of there, looking back it was pretty funny…

Interestingly enough, other people started to add to that piece, right? Was that cool to see?

Yeah, they put like little pockets and a big mouth on there, that was cool…

It gave the piece its own life after you walked away, and that’s a good lead-in actually to the Paste-Up Project, because although you haven’t got any Star Wars figures, obviously the vintage toys are a central element, so explain the concept that you’ve installed…

I really wanted to do something interactive and get the public involved. I was treating it along the lines that it’s going to be pretty hard just to keep it updated, let alone with people playing with it, so I just thought I will have some larger figures up there from generic toys from my memories; I really wanted to have a massive Barbie from the 80s, a Sport Barbie in an 80s leotard, showing how crazy the body shape was. I also wanted a He-Man up there too, because I’ve been talking a lot with my friends about how it is so weird that He-Man is such a macho figure, but he’s always in his underwear. It’s the same with fantasy novels like Conan, it’s always fighting monsters in loin clothes, it’s very weird to me. Anyway, I added Raphael, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, and a G.I. Joe from the 60s. Back in the 60s, all the boys were taught to go to war and fight and kill, this very macho thing, and all the women were taught just to stay home and look after their man and the family, that was the lifestyle, so I wanted to question that. Then I just asked the public to send me photos of the toys that they had as kids. I’ve still got quite a few to put up as well…

The thing with toys is that they have such a powerful sense of nostalgia for us and yet they are often highly problematic and that was one of the things you said that you were wanting to illuminate. But it’s not just the questions of gender identity and body image, there’s also actually the literal toxicity of older toys…

Yeah, it’s crazy when you look into all the plastics that they used, especially back in 50s and 60s, right up to the 80s and 90s and probably still now a little bit with the mass-produced toys especially, all the knock-off toys. They’re getting better now, but its the hidden stuff like all the glues, the paints. I think Fisher Price is one of the first companies to actually come forward and say publicly that you can still collect these vintage toys, but by all means do not let your children use them. It’s quite interesting because a lot of people just really don’t want to hear that. A friend told me that this local Salvation Army store posted that they had all these great toys from the 80s and someone replied saying, hey, this company’s actually come out and said that these are to collect, not for kids to play with, which is a hard thing to hear. Right now I’m holding a 1980s plastic figure, I love all this stuff, but I will wash my hands after playing with something like this, and I don’t really like letting my daughter play with some of these toys. It’s not because they are collectible, they are toys that are meant to be played with, it’s more that we try to get her toys that aren’t toxic. It’s hard, because I still buy vinyl, but ideally, they should be using recycled plastics to make records. It’s just bewildering, it’s crazy…

You have actually worked quite consistently at a reasonably large scale, some of the previous Paste Up Project artists haven’t worked at such a size. Was this project less daunting because of your previous experience?

Yeah, it was good. Really the only issue was the curve of the bollard and learning about the materials, like soaking the adhesive paper for half an hour. But it went up so easily, I couldn’t believe how fast it was. It was really good how it adhered, so it went well, and I enjoyed working at that scale…

That sense of scale seems quite important for your work because that nostalgic element takes on more emphasis when it is larger. As you get older, things seem smaller, so to make them bigger again plays on our memories of them, it brings back that sense of magic. When you see something after a long time and you’ve gotten older and bigger, it never seems as impressive, so recreating them at this massive scale, it brings back that wonder. It gives them a sense of agency as well; it makes them seem like they can talk back. The large size seems to be a good fit with the concepts that are being teased out in your work…

Yeah, I mean it does make a lot of sense. I mean, I like Ghostcat’s tiny builds, his small stuff, with surprises that you have to look out for, the detail’s just amazing. But then I love things that are just stupidly large, oversized and just really like: Bang! There’s Barbie, standing on Manchester Street. I love the fact that everyone just knows what they are straight away, yet it’s still a surprise.

It automatically attaches people to something familiar, right?

They go in for a closer look and they go, oh it’s He Man! I remember that as a kid! It starts all the conversations about what their childhood was like. Hopefully it makes people smile…

You talked about a few people commenting as they were passing, have people been responding to the work?

Most of it has been positive. I’m always personally surprised that more people don’t stop and have a chat. I’m the sort of person that if I saw someone doing that, then I’m always like, wow, that’s cool, and I’ll go ahead and try and find out what someone’s doing. But you know, most people just live in their own worlds, looking at their phones. Big groups of drunk people are the worst to be honest, that’s why I try not to do it on a Friday or Saturday night. There’s nothing worse than a whole bunch of drunk people, going “what are you doing?” With this work, when people asked, I could tell them that it’s an official project, and they like to hear that as opposed to just putting something up, but then it’s a bollard, you are not just going to put things up on it are you?

That’s the other thing with your installation, the connection with the bollard. Because they are toys, it automatically raises the idea of advertising, so it starts to become an interesting interplay because it’s not advertising and it’s actually doing the opposite because it’s raising some of the issues of consumption. The way you have composed the work, that large-scale parade going around the bollard, was that in some ways to stop it looking too much like advertising posters?

Yeah, it was. At one point what I wanted to do was like a line-up, like The Usual Suspects mug shot. But then I realised that the heights were all different, and it wouldn’t have worked. I mean, I’ve sort of done that, but not really. I just wanted to make something that you walked around, a big continuous piece to look at, and then to add to it over the weeks. I’ve been there a few times and added stuff to it…

I have one last question and this one is probably pretty hard to answer, you’ve mentioned that you’re a toy collector, what’s the one toy you would buy if price was no object?

I’m a Bossk collector, so there is the famous toxic-limbed Bossk from Spain. There are about 50 of them in the world, some say 29. I’m really into the Spanish Star Wars stuff. Basically, they’ve made like 600 million little tiny figures, mainly in China or Taiwan, places like that, but then Spain got a contract, and started producing some Star Wars figures, but the company that produced them, the quality of plastic they used wasn’t as good and so for some reason the Bossk figure’s plastic has degraded and has turned his limbs, his arms and legs, a green colour. They call it the toxic green Bossk and this figure is sought after all over the world, it goes for stupid money. It’s not like the Boba Fett Rocket Launcher, but…

That’s the famous one, right?

Yeah, but it really annoys me, and I’m getting my geeky hat on here, there are fewer figures of the toxic Bossk, but because it’s Boba Fett, it’s given more cred. But Boba Fett is just a dude in a space helmet, he is literally just a guy in a space suit! He’s a cool figure too, but the Bossk is the one! I know that if I ever got it, it wouldn’t be that amazing, I would have it in my hands and it would be, ahh, its OK, but that’s the one I would buy.

Did you want to give any shout outs?

Thanks to yourself and Phantom, JZA, Cape of Storms, and teethlikescrewdrivers, he’s always handy with his advice and he is so enthusiastic. I love the fact that he is all over everything…

That sense of community is driven by a lot of people, but he is right at the heart of it…

If I was younger, I would hang out with them all the time. But I do kind of like working by myself. I have so much work, but it just takes time. It always looks so cool and it’s great when there are new fresh walls. I often think what would my mum think? But she would probably drive right past and that’s alright.

Thank you to Phantom Billstickers and the Christchurch City Council for their support of The Paste-Up Project!