This month I asked Fiksate’s Dr Suits to look back over the month of September. While normally this series highlights events and additions to the streets, guest contributors continue to bring a fresh perspective to the experience of living in Christchurch as a creative city. Dr Suits is a compulsive creator, with a prodigious output. His paintings serve as progressive studies that track his ongoing visual evolution. His abstractions are entwined with the surrounding urban environment, and as his list illustrates, he is hyper aware of the intriguing details of the cracked concrete and applications of paint around Christchurch. The direction of influence is unclear, as he suggests: “I’m not sure whether the urban photos inspire my work or my work dictates what I shoot. But I use images of buildings and textures to help with compositions, shapes, forms, textures, line and colour in my work all the time. And when I take photos, I’m looking for content which translates back to my work, so it’s a bit of a circular process.” It is no surprise then, that his list is a collection of intimate snapshots of urban surfaces and how they influence his work, reflections on how we can perceive and recontextualise the aesthetics around us. With that said, in true Dr Suits fashion, he declares dryly: “I try not to over think it to be honest.”
The Contrast of Concrete
I’m into looking at surfaces and seeing how others have interacted with them. I get satisfaction from the angle of line someone made when they cut and fixed the concrete footpath, the contrast of the old and new surface material really interests me. It’s not something I usually talk about with my mates though: “Yo, check out the change of the angle in that line in the concrete, that’s nice!”
The Buff Squad
As much as I love urban art and graf, I really do appreciate how layers of buff form abstract compositions on buildings. The different shades of grey that never match, often in square or rectangular arrangements. They are often accidentally beautiful. The buff squad should have their own Instagram feed. If they do can you send me the tag? I’m literally checking now to see if they do…
Diagonal Lines
Then there’s diagonal lines, I love them. In the physical world they are everywhere. They are designed to stand out and grab our attention. I have used them quite a lot in my work over the past few years and I’m constantly exploring the dynamic impact they can have in a composition.
Yellow All Around
Yellow is super visible, and from a long distance. Yellow cuts through. I like yellow lines. Yellow traffic poles, yellow road markings, yellow lines. Yellow is bloody great. It appears in my work regularly, especially in combination with black.
What is This Wizardry?
I was down at the Thompson Park skate bowl in North New Brighton. It had recently been buffed out PEEEP grey (if you know, you know). Some absolute fucking genius had used a black spray can to mark out all the seam lines in the concrete to highlight the wizardry behind the intricate shapes used to form the skate bowl. Now this is urban abstract art at its finest…
Dr Suits will be featured in Fiksate’s upcoming exhibition Urban Abstract, which will also feature Elliot O”Donnell, TOGO, Levi Hawken, Tepid and Pener… Opening October 25th (more to come on that!)…
Jessie Rawcliffe’s figurative works are immediately alluring. The painstaking brush work, the flat blocks of colour that focus the finer detail, and the tight photographic cropping are all recurring effects that combine to explore both the medium of painting, as well as the sense of the ephemeral, the subjects in a state of flux. Figures are coloured with gestures, poses and expressions that serve as tools for communication, notably challenging the submissive female figure historically located in portraiture, confronting the viewer’s intrusive presence. Close the Door When You Go, Rawcliffe’s first solo show, continues the exploration of these themes, the title taking on a passive or aggressive instruction dependent on inflection, either way imploring respite from the outside world.
Oh, and then there are Jessie’s skulls, which come in all sorts of apparitions, including the fruity, revealing the underlying mortality of all life. The sticker versions that find their way onto the streets are definitely some of our favourite slaps going. They may not form part of Close the Door When You Go, but we couldn’t not bring them up!
We can’t wait to see this show!
Close the Door When You Go opens on Friday November 11, from 5:30pm, and will run simultaneously with Tyne Gordon’s show Visitor in CoCA’s Ground Floor Gallery.
If you follow us on social media, you will know by now that we are super excited about Saturday’s Highlight street art party! That excitement is for good reason, as Highlight is shaping up as one of the most impressive urban art events the city has seen in several years. Hosted by a number of SALT District businesses, and occupying SALT Square and nearby locations, the one-night only party is a result of the collaboration between a number of entities, including Oi YOU!, the masterminds behind the massively popular Rise and Spectrum festivals, as well as the recent SALT mural produced by Dcypher and Paul Walters of Identity Signs.
Dcypher and Paul Walters, with Oi YOU!, SALT Mural, SALT Square, 2019
Speaking of Dcypher, the recently relocated artist (having returned from a decade long stint living and working in Los Angeles) will be joined by his DTR crewmates, Ikarus, Wongi and JacobYikes in painting live at Highlight and producing a pop-up gallery of their work. Another pop-up gallery space will be created by the city’s leading purveyors of urban contemporary art, Fiksate, who will present work from their impressive collection. On top of that, Nelson’s Shady Collective (of Spectrum infamy) will present demonstration stalls for screen-printing, t-shirt and stencil-making, giving punters the opportunity to both make and take pieces!
Ikarus and Dcypher, Christchurch, 2019
Being that urban culture extends beyond graffiti and street art, there will also be live music (thanks to Bassfreaks and RDU DJs), food and drink (from the Little High Eatery and surrounding restaurants) and retail pop-ups of street wear from some of the city’s leading urban fashion masters, including Hunters and Collectors, Curb and The Recycle Boutique. Oh, and did we mention that once the official street party winds up, there are multiple after party options, from The Retropolitan to Smash Palace, The Slate Room and Dux Central.
Fiksate’s 2016 show CAPD, photo credit Charlie Rose Creative
And of course, another of the ‘Highlights’ will be the live video projection animation of the SALT mural, the first of it’s scale in Ōtautahi. This is sure to be an impressive, eye-catching activation of one of Christchurch’s newest pieces of street art muralism.
Highlight will kick-off at 5pm on Saturday at SALT Square on Tuam Street and is free entry. For more information, check out the event page on Facebook.
I recently caught up with Jay ‘Daken’ Skelton in advance of the opening of his new exhibition space 413 Local Gallery, based out of A.J. Creative Glass on Tuam Street. We sat down at Switch Espresso in New Brighton as he took a break from painting a wall in the café (featuring a gnarly giant octopus no less) to give us the low down on his vision for 413 Local, how it came about and what has inspired him in the process. The new space will open on October 4th with a group show of local artists, Hello Christchurch, a celebration of connections to and reflections upon the Garden City…
Jay, you are in the process of opening a new exhibition space, 413 Local Gallery, how did that opportunity come about and what approach will you be taking to shows?
I work with my parents, they own their own business, A.J. Creative Glass, and they came to me about three or four months ago and asked if I wanted to take part of the big showroom at the front of the store and turn it into a gallery space. They know that I have always wanted to do something like this, and like anyone in my position I guess, I jumped at the chance. So, now we are in the process of building walls that will make up this exhibition space and building towards our opening show. As the name suggests, I want people to represent their local, wherever they are from, whatever represents them as a person or as a community, and to show it through their art, whether that’s painting, drawing, sculpture, or any other medium…
Does that mean showing artists whose work explicitly deals in those themes, or encouraging artists to engage in such ideas through the shows the gallery will host?
I think it is a little bit of both. In the beginning, I want the first couple of shows to focus on local artists and to give them a stage to show their work, representing Christchurch obviously. But as we grow I would like to bring in people from other countries or different parts of the country and the work itself doesn’t have to be focused on where they are from, but I feel like any artist who makes art, there is a little bit of them that goes into it, you know what I mean?
That creates an interesting platform, what people or spaces have informed the gallery’s identity, because that idea of community might share a kinship with certain types of galleries, while your own experiences might suggest connections to other ‘art worlds’, particularly the rising kind of urban/low-fi scene that is growing in Christchurch…
There are a couple that come to mind straight off the bat. One is Fiksate obviously, everyone there has been super kind to me, and I’ve been part of shows there with so many different people from so many different backgrounds, it has been inspiring. Also my time at ARA, formerly CPIT, is still important to me, especially the experience of being in a classroom with really diverse classmates, like being one of only three males and the rest of the class were female, as well as the fact that people were all from different countries and backgrounds, that was definitely inspiring in terms of my relationships with people. I think people’s stories impact me a lot, and knowing what makes someone ‘them’ is so important…
You have a graffiti background, and I think you would also pretty proudly fly your ‘pop culture nerd’ flag as well…
Yep!
Do you think that those interests will influence the type of artists and work you show? I know we all like certain things and gravitate towards them in our expressions, so will your passions inform the identity of 413?
Definitely, but I’m actually looking at this space as a bit of a transformative moment for me. I have always done very bold, very colourful, graffiti, comic book, cartoonish stuff. I want to keep that, or at least keep some elements of that, but also, I want to add some more aspects, to try and bring my graffiti background into a more refined process. So yeah, I’m kind of like a butterfly, you know, I want to try and evolve…
Switch Espresso cafe table painted by Jay “Daken” Skelton, 2018.
To emerge from your cocoon, wings spread out! (Laughs)
Exactly! (Laughs)
There is a sense that there is much more freedom for artists to engage with a wider array of things. Are there any particular artists who have inspired that desire to evolve? For example, I’m such a fan of Revok and the directions he has gone in over time, from graffiti to process driven abstraction, is there anyone like that who has been an influence?
It’s funny that you say that, because Revok is someone I follow closely on Instagram, because I find it so interesting how far he has taken it, from being such a hardcore graffiti person to pretty much now doing straight up abstract art. Also, Chimp’s show Aliases at Fiksate, the jump that he talked about, how he was just a graffiti guy and now trying to go more into the contemporary area, I found that quite interesting. Off the top of my head though, it’s really hard to name people, there’s are heaps of people who influence me in that way!
Yeah, like, here’s a million things, pick three! (Laughs)
Yeah!
So, tell me more about Hello Christchurch, which opens on the 4th of October, who is involved and who are you excited about?
We have thirteen different artists, I think. We’ve got the likes of Porta (Clint Park), Uncle Harold, Josha Holland, Morepork, Louann Sidon, oh, and my dad’s in it! My dad growing up did a lot of art projects, but he never really committed to being an artist. He doesn’t consider himself an artist, but I think he is an artist. There is a whole bunch of people, and I’m looking forward to seeing all of them. They are all going to bring something different and exciting to the table.
The show’s title, and its expression of a connection to place, reflects what you talked about in your vision for the gallery. When you developed the idea for this show, what were you hoping to encourage artists to think about?
Hello Christchurch, it’s an opening, so it’s literally a ‘hello’. I guess I wanted people to look at where they live, and how it makes them happy, to think about the things that they see around and feel about Christchurch and how they put into those things into their art. I told everyone that they could do anything they wanted, use whatever material, as long as it relates back to Christchurch in some way, even if it is the smallest thing, just something that relates to Christchurch and what it means to them.
Have you had any previews of work yet?
Funnily enough, no! I have no idea what anyone is doing, except my best friend, who works at A.J. Creative Glass with me and is in the show, and my dad, they have kind of given me a rough idea of what they are doing, but I haven’t actually seen it! The only person’s work that I’ve seen is my own…
You are going to have about three weeks to hang everything from when you get the work, is that right?
Two weeks, I think…
What approach will you take to curating the show? A group show means you must honour individual works and give them space, but at the same time try and expose interesting links, even though the artists haven’t necessarily thought about how their work relates to others in the show, especially since you have given them such a broad allowance.
Yeah, I feel like it will be a bit of both really. You want the work to make its own statement, but at the same time it is a group show. But because I haven’t seen any of the work yet, I obviously don’t know how its going to work together. That’s kind of the challenge, it’s kind of the fun for me, finding out how things fit together. Figuring out how people connect, it’s the same thing as making the works connect, but on a visual level, you know what I mean? Colours really affect me a lot, I think about them all the time, so they will definitely affect how I group the work; what colours complement each other, which fight with each other…
I look forward to the show and to the gallery getting up and running and being a new voice in the city. It’s great to see a new space and a new energy, I can only assume you feel excited for the journey to begin…
Definitely, you know being part of the Christchurch art community has always been a really amazing feeling, it has always felt really supportive. I want to make someone else feel that, I want to be the support for someone else, and that I’ve been given the opportunity to do that is beyond awesome. A lot of people don’t get that opportunity, so I plan on making the best of it. I have been struggling at times, it has its ups and downs, but again, it is all part of the fun, it’s part of life!
In the second part of our interview with Nick Lowry, we continue with a free-flowing dive into the physicality and urgency of painting, the influence of music, the process of collage and the need for creative diversity within tight-knit communities…
Talking about some of the formal elements, your letterforms seem to have become increasingly abstracted. The dissolution of letters into blocks or blobs or half circular forms, is that the result of thinking about letterforms, or moving away from letters?
I think when I paint graffiti, I’m using my arms a lot and I’m gesticulating a lot and I think my letter structure mirrors that…
They mirror the physicality?
Yeah, like a dance. I’m really wiping the wall, or I’m doing some crazy contemporary dance in my head and I’m articulating that with my hands. I try to be as fluid as possible. I hardly spend any time on my sketch, usually it’s just my fill colour. Why would I go back over my sketch and change up my letter structure if that’s my impulse? What I’ve just sketched is how I’m feeling obviously, so I’m just backtracking over my own emotional involvement by touching it up.
Tepid piece, central Christchurch, 2019
It comes back to that urgency and violence, and if you are redoing it, you are losing a lot of energy, right?
Yeah.
Having an idea beforehand and trying to replicate it is a very different approach to trying to make something that reflects a specific moment and emotion.
I don’t premeditate. I’ve chucked away all my sketch books, even from when I started. I chose to throw them away. I have photos on my computer of recent pieces, but I’ve lost hard drives of stuff from up until 2016. I feel like I want to get to a point where I don’t want to take any photos of the graffiti at all.
That would really make it about the singular experience of doing something in that moment, right? It’s no longer about a catalogue or a body of work…
I think that’s why I did it. Most people would cry if they lost their books, because they really love them, but for me, they are just collecting dust and getting eaten by rats. They are a ball and chain…
There’s a freedom in letting go?
Yeah absolutely.
In so much of your work there is a dynamic quality, a sense of action and movement, from the lines whipping across the plane, to this lovely flickering quality that your more recent works have, and even white highlights, which seem to be a recurring, enduring fixation.
That’s why I paint as fast as I can go, because I don’t want to lose that. I’m scared that it’s going to float away again.
Tepid and Hambone colab, central Christchurch, 2019
Is it an interest in the use of shimmering light, of reflections and movement?
That’s a good word, shimmering. That’s precisely what I’m trying to create in my pieces, movement and the feeling that each piece is its own entity. I used to try and paint with traditional colour schemes, but now I’m looking at soft gradients, not even reflections, I’m just trying to create an emotional response through the colour palette, and I think by doing that I can try and put life in these pieces, and a sense of movement and electricity.
Those soft gradients have become definitive, or at least distinctive, and they often set your work apart from others around them, kind of dissolving the harshness and angularity of some other styles. There’s something about those soft gradients and transitions that ties to those wavering outlines and organic letter shapes as well, all of which make your work stand out…
Man, that makes me really want to paint again! (Laughs) Yeah, I guess those wavering lines are the gradients I’m trying to create, these beautiful soft gradients. I’m trying to be as clean as I can with the fill, as fast as I can, but as dusty as I can, and I think the wavering lines add to that sense of motion…
“Heron” mural, Christchurch, 2018
It seems to me that a lot of these qualities are related to the nature of aerosol, or the possibilities found in aerosol. There is a high level of can control obviously to get those effects, but there is also a freedom and that comes about through aerosol having certain characteristics, right? Is that something that interests you?
It did… I think it did, but now I feel like, especially with my outlines and details, my gradients, I need decent paint, because you can only achieve that with certain levels of paint, and colours that hold well to the wall. Although all the blacks and whites are generally acquired from wherever, just cheap brands that I’ve scabbed. Actually, a lot of my pieces are roller fills. I’ll do the base, you know, if it’s an orange with a softer yellow or lime green gradient over that, or whatever, and generally the heavier colour is a roll fill. And I find roller filling fun because it adds to the element of really smashing and grinding something down. I look at graffiti as sculpting as well. I think it is quite sculptural, you can start with a base shape and you just kind of chisel and shape it down with detail really.
Being that you have worked across so many fields, what experiences really stand out for you?
I guess with all the art forms that I engage with, there’s at least one or two things that stand out. When it comes to graffiti, a fond memory of mine is painting a piece in the open during the day illegally on the side of a dam in Margaret River and then hearing the alarm going off as I’m painting, finishing it, scrambling off, climbing out and then watching that thing wash down! With graffiti, I like the element of getting yourself into crazy situations, not that I focus on getting up or hitting the craziest spots, but the situations that I put myself into and walking around in really obscure places you wouldn’t usually go. It’s not so much to find a place to paint, it’s more the idea of exploring. You go out with the intention of painting because you have paint with you, but painting is only twenty percent of the time, the experience and everything else is what you are taking in visually and is filling the senses, filling that void of whatever I have! I don’t know what that is, but obviously I have one and I need to fill it! I think that’s eighty per cent of the reason why I do anything. With set design, I’ve had some pretty amazing jobs recently and looking back, I think it’s probably doing kids shows, anything for children. If you can deliver something to children that is going to stay in their minds forever and inspire them, I think that is so important. I still think about shows my parents used to take me to, shows at the Mill Theatre and all that, and I can still remember every detail. I do a lot of music videos as well, and I’ve had really good responses to the stuff I’ve been producing with some really good crews. I think the satisfaction of that and seeing yourself in another format is really satisfying and doing it all to music I like as well.
Still from the Aldous Harding music video for The Barrel, from her album Designer, art directed by Nick Lowry, 2018
When you are working on music videos, that relationship between the visual and the musical, does that make you reflect more on the influence of music on your visual arts practice? Music has been an enduring influence, right?
Forever, yeah…
You talked about the influence of punk and metal; can you define that influence visually?
I think it’s like when you are eating food and you kind of see with your nose. So, for me, with music, you can visualise certain energies in your mind. Music has always been this driving force for anything creative I’ve done, subliminally…
Is music always playing when you work?
Or not. Sometimes when I listen to music for days and days and days on end, just constantly, when it comes to making art, I try and tone down the amount of music or just don’t listen to it at all and just let that energy just come back out because I’ve done all the thinking and I just have to kind of let the process flow…
Which suggests reflection on the experience of listening. For some people listening to music becomes a background accompaniment, it fades into the background. It’s there and is driving action but not necessarily reflection. It sounds like for you it is actually a reflective thing as well…
Yeah, we are sponges, right? Whatever we expose ourselves to exists within us, and I think sometimes it’s nice to have that negative space and have nothingness around us and I think that’s when we can be in our most creative space.
That energy of the act of painting that we were just discussing, there’s obviously an echo with the energy of music, do you kind of see you paintings as musical in a sense, not overtly, like painting a song, but in terms of the rhythms and energies…
Absolutely, and I think for most people it’s the same, most people that paint or have some sort of visual expression, also love music and need music around them, and I think that is probably one of the driving forces of what I do.
Having talked about the why your interest in certain forms fluctuates, what has captured your energy currently? Are there any significant developments you see on the horizon?
Yeah, I mean I’m drawing a lot more now and I haven’t painted in a while. When I was in Perth five or six years ago, I used to paint a lot, and I was also painting graffiti, but I think I’ve kind of let painting go and now I’m trying to get back into it. I feel like I’m on the brink of dropping my guard on that again. Because I do put up boundaries, like I have with graffiti right now, I’m just like, I want to do something else. I think the painting one is about to come down, I’ve slowly started just playing around with stuff, heinous stuff, it’s not good, but it’s a start! (Laughs) I’ll just keep painting over and over until I feel like I’m juicing up again, you know?
Untitled, mixed media on canvas, 2019
Are those elements of the gradients and colour schemes, the line work, are they still as strong?
Absolutely, I’m exploring the loose lines, and the very brushed fast geometry that doesn’t have to necessarily make sense but just exists, because if it did make sense, what’s the point of looking at it? It’s like watching a TV show that is not interesting, when it’s easy to watch and it has just been laid out for you.
You are not challenged…
But if you create something that doesn’t exist or shouldn’t exist or something that doesn’t even make sense, I think it’s more interesting because it’s up to the viewer to make sense of it…
What about your collage practice, do you see that as distinct to painting and more akin to your experience in film?
For me, collage is a very fast, quick way of expressing myself but also setting boundaries, you know? You are playing around with images that already exist.
Untitled, collage on board, 2019
Do you apply the same element of urgency that we were talking about with your graffiti? Are you chucking them together quite quickly?
It’s all false perspective. I like the idea of having minimum images but creating the maximum depth possible. I think emotionally they are so fucking aggravating, and I really like that. They are really harsh to look at, they don’t look right, but… It’s hard to describe. Because I do them so fast and because I’m doing them with a blade, there is a physicality and I’m really having to scratch myself and grind into it and rip and tear, and there’s that element of violence that I really enjoy, that we all have in us, and it’s very human, it’s just how you get it out.
Like graffiti in a way, right? The need to get something out, and to do so in a certain way, it is lost on some people who shut themselves off from it, but it is an outlet for a very human need…
It’s very primitive.
Which is why I still find it strange that people are so emotional in their response to and vilification of graffiti…
I kind of like the idea that it is vilified, if it was loved by everyone, what would be the point?
True, and that’s often overlooked by people who don’t get that side of it, channelling it into positive directions is good in some cases, but it also means that it is not what it was. Is there anything you want to tell people about?
I have recently provided art direction for three music videos about to come out, so people should see them. But, mostly, I think I just want people to get off Instagram and see the art for themselves, to be in front of it and smell it and touch it. I just want to try and promote that, to promote that regaining of the sense of uncontrolled-ness, and how we should all be less homogenised. Socially we should be forming a greater sense of community, but creatively we should be pulling away from each other, if that makes sense…
We can be together and unified as communities, but creatively, the more diversity the better for those communities…
Yeah, and I think this is the time to do that in Christchurch as well. We’ve had to band together and now we have to create a split, to form new dynamics within our communities and cultures so we can then really start to get the ball rolling and become a creative powerhouse as a city. Also, I think, in Christchurch, get on your bike! Like literally, get on your bicycle and roam around and check it out, because there’s a broader part of Christchurch that people don’t explore or don’t know exists, or they do, but they are too scared to get out there…
Tepid and Dove colab, central Christchurch, 2019
We often avoid getting outside of our comfort or routine, and that’s the beauty of walking or cycling, you can easily verge off down a side street, go down an alleyway, do things that will lead to experiences that are unexpected, but can be quite life affirming.
Definitely, and it’s a slow down as well, it slows you down to be able to accept everything that you come across. I love Christchurch, it’s sometimes hard to live here, but it does have these beautiful aspects about it that are undeniably so good!
When I arranged to sit down with Nick Lowry (at times known as Tepid), I wasn’t sure where the conversation might lead. This wasn’t a reflection of Nick’s temperament, he is a chill guy who is instantly likeable, instead, it was based on the reality that his work is spread in so many directions that there were almost infinite possibilities. When we started to chat, it became pretty obvious that we would sprawl across various topics, shifting back and forth, an apt reflection of Nick’s process as a maker and doer. As a graffiti artist, muralist, painter, collagist, set designer, art director, sticker maker and more, it was fascinating to see how he distinguished these practices, but also had a defined understanding of his creative impulses in a singular sense. It was quickly apparent that Nick’s compulsion to make things is driven by a deep urge, one that doesn’t necessarily require explanation or understanding, but instead is a very human condition that invokes all the contradictions of our nature. By the time we came up for air, an hour had flown by and we had discussed a raft of ideas around graffiti, surfing, music, scenic art, exploring cities, and overthinking things. It is no surprise then that this has become a two-part interview, and here in part one, we start with the diversity of his work, his introduction to graffiti and his thoughts on his hometown of Christchurch…
From graffiti, stickers and mural works, to set design and film art direction, diversity is kind of a hallmark of your work. What was the earliest creative impulse for you? Was graffiti a gateway into other creative practices, or was it more of a vehicle that harnessed your existing creative impulses?
I think it was more of a vehicle. It was probably intrigue that sparked it off. When I was twelve years old, I had a babysitter, he was probably sixteen, and he wouldn’t feed me until I smoked a joint and watched him paint freights in Belfast, which is pretty funny. So, for me it was almost this hatred of graffiti because I wasn’t getting fed unless I helped this guy out, you know? I hated it until I was about sixteen when I became mates with some guys who were painting, Fader, Astro, Raws, Venom, all those dudes. They were all mates from university. I was watching what they were doing, and I was like, this is actually a really intelligent form of art! Up until then I had always been drawing. I’d been drawing forever. I was really into, strangely enough at a young age, interior design. All through high school I was always building dioramas. So, at an early age I was exploring set design, scenic art and that sort of thing. One of my first jobs was a scenic artist in the Riccarton Players Club, at the Mill Theatre in Addington. Before that was destroyed. So, I think there is a real cross-over for me between graffiti and scenic art, in that there is a really blurry line. When I paint graffiti, I don’t paint for the ‘getting up’, I paint purely for the way colours work and for the names that I’ve chosen over the years. It’s simply a vehicle for style, like it is for a lot of graffiti writers, I guess. Like I said before, I’m just creating these little worlds and the diversity of my art just comes down to how I feel on any particular day. Some weeks I put a lot more effort into collaging or into graffiti, or into set design or muralism, or realism, or just hustling for work. I’ve never been fully immersed in anything. I don’t want to be typecast. I don’t want to be known for anything. I just do it for myself, and everything I do is simply an outlet.
There must be a consistent thread through it all though, something that unifies everything in some way, can you see the way they all interrelate?
Oh definitely…
Not only aesthetically or stylistically, but in the practice and process of each, is that something you think about?
Yeah, I guess I don’t really think that deeply into it. It’s almost like with a creative act, the more I think about it, the less I want to do it. For me being creative is a way of not thinking at all, and that’s why I probably don’t produce as much as I should. But I don’t want to have to think about producing a lot of things, because for me, that just creates pressure and I don’t like that! (Laughs)
Tepid roller tag, central Christchurch, c.2013
That freedom is important?
The freedom of it is really important. It is what it is, and if one week I make fifty collages and for the next three weeks I don’t do anything, it’s because I’ve transferred my energy into something else. I like to surf a lot, and that is one of my most creative outlets. If I’m not making art, I like to do that. I also like to run a lot, and that is strangely another creative outlet because a lot of thought processes go on during that time. I think having physical outlets is really important.
There is a physicality in wall painting and in set design as well, so there is inherently a connection between physical activity and the act of creation in those instances. Conversely, in the case of running there is a sense of freedom, physical but also by extension mental, while surfing offers a physical creative performance…
It’s a release of a certain type of energy. We get a taste and I think we always want to feel that energy again. I like having a diverse range of things that get me to feel differently. I don’t really think about achieving a consistent style, but sometimes, if I look around this room, if I blur my eyes a little bit, I can kind of see something. I don’t really know how to describe it. I don’t really think about what I do to the point where I can do that.
You talked about leaving things and letting them evolve subconsciously, before coming back to it when it has worked itself through…
Yeah, I just sort of nurture it in my mind and come back to it.
Do you see your work in a progressive sense? Can you look back over time and see a lineage, or are there various trajectories between different points because of that willingness to leave things? For instance, is muralism a progression from graffiti?
I think my muralism is quite immature and unrefined. it’s one of those things that is more of a hobby. Muralism is probably the hardest thing for me, because I am quite critical of what I do, and I prefer to do things for myself. With a mural, you have so much pressure to create something that’s for the viewer and I generally don’t care about the viewer! (Laughs) But at the same time I would like to produce more, and over time it is getting better and I am trying to refine the style. But I don’t visit muralism as much. Maybe I will in the future, but at the moment it isn’t a massive priority. Whereas I think set design is helping me to evolve that further because I have to work within a limited space, and I think that kind of helps set me up mentally.
Mural for Underground Coffee, Durham Street, Christchurch, 2019
You mean when you are designing a set you are working within a defined space and creating a defined world? Which to me, kind of echoes graffiti and muralism in that you are trying to create something within the space around you…
It’s too much. With muralism, there is almost too much you can do. You aren’t restricted by physics. I like being bound and restrained; you know? If I was given three colours or something and told to only use those colours, perhaps I could manage it. But I think with muralism, it is too easy to overthink it. With set design and art direction, you are given a space and an actor or dialogue, and you are confined to that, and that’s how I like to work.
Did you train in set design at all?
No, I studied graphic design, video post-production and editing.
How deeply do you think about the conceptual approach to set design? Are you constantly thinking practically, in a real-world sense, or do you explore an abstract concept beyond the visual and how an environment might be multi-layered?
Definitely, and I think that’s the beauty of it, you are creating a world through which someone is going to speak their dialogue and it doesn’t have to be literal. In fact, they want it to be as non-literal as possible, so the actor then has a space from which to bounce off, I guess.
You’ve got to achieve that balance between the nuances of each approach…
You also have to think about lighting and shadow, and the way those elements work, so there are a lot of things to consider.
This all leads me to back track a little bit. You mentioned that you didn’t come at graffiti through the traditional ways of Subway Art and Style Wars, or even hip-hop culture necessarily…
No, it was the direct influence of my peers, this supposed babysitter! (Laughs) Just being there when it was being done. My direct influences were my friends, watching things getting destroyed, skating and things like that…
Tepid piece, Christchurch, 2019
Does that mean you had more or less of a recognition of the importance of graffiti as a sub-cultural and even historical phenomenon?
I soon learnt. Once I formed that obsession with tagging and throw ups and all the rest, I quickly picked up every book I could, watched every film I could, researched every writer throughout history and then formed obsessions with certain writers and created heroes and stuff like that. So, I soon schooled myself and became obsessed with graffiti and street art.
Were you conscious of the idea of graffiti as a political act and the themes of identity and contestation? Or was that aspect always secondary to the draw of being creative? Although creativity through destruction is political in a way…
I think the importance of graffiti and my understanding of it was about being in a moment in time and the way you deliver it, the aggression behind it and being with other writers. Not to sound like graffiti is a macho thing, but you are with the crew and you are outdoing each other. I liked the idea that there was this aggressive, ‘fuck you’ element to it. The punk influences behind graffiti for me were the main thing when I was younger…
You mentioned the punk influence earlier, which is often overshadowed by hip hop, but punk is a significant influence on graffiti and street art culture…
For me, Christchurch metal was a big influence, which I guess is like the punk ethos. I was a young metal head, but I had a broad spectrum of friends, a lot were really goth, but a lot were also really G, so there was a cross over. But we were all hanging out together. There were skaters and goths and G’s at parties, everyone was hanging out together. I didn’t want to box myself into any one circle. For me, graffiti was a thing that didn’t exist in any boxes, because my social circles didn’t fit into those boxes…
Handmade Tepid sticker, central Christchurch, 2018
Christchurch is a small city, so it is more likely that those scenes will intermingle, right? Speaking of Christchurch, what impact has the city itself had on you as an artist? How big an impact do you think the quakes have had on the city’s creative communities?
Well, I spent a lot of my twenties away from Christchurch, in Perth, in Margaret River and in Broome in Western Australia, exploring the desert. I also spent a lot of time in Indonesia and exploring the Philippines. So, when the February 2011 earthquake hit, I was here for two months, and I was like, I don’t have to be here. I had travelled enough to know there was more out there and I could access that with a $400 plane ticket, so I was out…
So, those experiences travelling, have they influenced the way you think about the post-quake city? Has painting pre-quake given you a certain take on the city now?
I enjoy Christchurch’s dark underbelly and industrial vibes. I think it has this very rigid, grey stone element that I quite like, but that a lot of people despise. The city is kind of a juxtaposition of these lovely blue skies and then this grey, sterile, and weathered architecture, which I don’t know, is just kind of a strange mix. And then we are surrounded by natural beauty, if you are willing to go find it. I think it is the most schizophrenic environment to be in, you know? (Laughs) We have this white and seemingly uncultured city, but then we have these explosions of music, like you were saying before, the amount of music that comes out of Christchurch is phenomenal, explosions of art and artists and everything else. There is something in the water in Christchurch, for sure, for a population of 400,000. Maybe it is that energy of where we are geographically?
Since coming back to Christchurch in 2015, have you found new directions have opened up for you as a creative?
It has opened so many doors. I think Christchurch has changed, it’s not as gritty and grimy as it used to be. But for a creative, someone who is on their own, trying to hustle for work, it’s amazing. You can create so many opportunities for yourself, whatever you can envision in your mind, you can achieve, it just depends on how far you are willing to push yourself.
Tepid and Hambone colab, central Christchurch, 2019
Does that surprise you, based on your experiences when you were younger?
I think those avenues probably existed then, but the situation didn’t allow us to have that train of thought. Whereas now when you come back and you are left with limited things to do, you really have to, in order to dig yourself out of a hole, you really have to dig, but you don’t have to dig too far to get what you want out of it. There are so many possibilities. There is not a lot that exists in Christchurch, so if you have an idea and you want to get it, you will get it.
It is almost a perfect storm because of the opportunities presented by the recovery, but also, I think, in our contemporary digital world, you can access and experience so many ideas that people are exploring all over the place and translate them to this environment if you want. The inspiration coupled with the opportunity is perhaps unlike any other time…
Definitely.
Although, I guess that can create a sense of homogeneity.
It can be a little bit homogenised sometimes.
I’m interested to talk about some of the more recent work you have been making, and particularly the features of fluorescent colours and wavering lines…
It’s kind of more painterly…
“Teeth” mural, Arcadia, central Christchurch, 2019
What is the inspiration for that?
Um I guess, physicality. If I’m making something, I don’t want it to look perfect, I don’t want it to look like it is clean cut or fresh. I was obsessed with painting like that in the past, but I found that as soon as I tried to paint more fluidly, I enjoyed it more. I think it’s more human to paint as rushed and as aggressively as possible. It’s like that classic car crash advertisement: ‘The faster you go the bigger the mess.’ The bigger the mess is awesome! So, much to the bane of all my mates who I paint with, I fucking rush my paintings. I always rush my graffiti, and it’s not because I want to get in and get out, it’s because I feel like I want to spew it out, I want to vomit my shit on the wall, you know? I don’t want to think about too much, because I think you can overthink things and you can overcook it. It’s not like graffiti is ‘get in, get out’, because I’m not doing anything illegal at the moment, sadly. I wish I could, but I’m just an old man! But when I do paint a piece on a wall, I just literally want to smash it…
Is it a need to replicate the energy you get when you do paint illegally? By painting with that speed, there’s an energy that echoes being somewhere you aren’t supposed to be, doing something you aren’t supposed to do, and the work will reflect that…
Definitely. I painted illegal graffiti when I was younger and I got caught enough to be like, fuck! But graffiti is graffiti and if you are not rushing it, why are you painting it? That’s the whole expression, to smash it out. It is a violent art form. As chill as you are, I think the point of graffiti for me is to make it look like it’s going to smash you in the face. I like things that look violent and have that emotional response, like you are going to get fucking sliced or whatever. But then I like to create these really funky colour schemes as well, with really soft gradients, which is my connection to nature, so maybe one day I want to die on the hills violently! I don’t know, maybe I want to get eaten by a shark? Maybe I try to create pieces that look like a violent beautiful death, or something…
August might not have had the greatest weather, but it still provided a number of highlights that served as doses of sunshine, from exhibitions to the New Zealand International Film Festival. For good measure, I even managed a trip out of town to Wellington (it rained, but I got breakfast at Sweet Mother’s Kitchen, so I didn’t care), where you can always find something interesting while exploring. So, if you can get over the disappointment of not having a guest columnist this month, here is my personal top five from August 2019…
Chimp – Aliases
Wellington artist Chimp was already familiar to Christchurch through his fantastic Justice and Emergency Services Precinct mural Organic Matters, and in August the city got a deeper insight into his evolving practice – the technical flourishes and superb detail of his mural work were joined by abstract forms and urban references in the body of work that formed Aliases. Chimp spent the week building up to the show in town and hanging out with the Fiksate crew, doing radio interviews and filming promo material, not to mention the busy opening night…
A Weekend in Wellington
A Togo piece in central Wellington, August 2019
I heading up to the capital for a friend’s birthday party in early August, and it was a timely reminder of why a new environment can energise your appreciation of your own surrounding landscape. Following my nose and wandering down alleyways in central Wellington, punctuated with their amazing coffee and restaurants (thanks SMK, Burger Liquor and all!), I was refreshed and returned home determined to put in the footwork here with more regularity.
Martha: A Picture Movie
The NZIFF had some amazing films on offer, but personally I was no more excited than to see the first feature documentary by the amazing Selina Miles (herself no stranger to Christchurch, having been part of the Rise and Spectrum shows), Martha – A Picture Story. The film explores the life and times of the legendary Martha Cooper, an iconic photographer of graffiti and urban art (amongst other bodies of work), who into her 70s, is still keeping up with the likes of the chaotic 1UP Crew on train missions! As I settled into my seat at Lumiere on a Monday lunchtime, I realised the crowd were largely a similar age to Martha, so here’s hoping there were some inspired viewers!
Fiksate presents Glen
Fiksate’s Glen installation, part of the Winter Wander presented by Glitterbox Pursuits, The Terrace, August 2019
While it was completed in late July, Glen, an installation by the Fiksate crew in The Terrace for GlitterBox Pursuits’ Winter Wander project was officially on view through August, so it fits in this month’s list. An abstract painting come to life, the space was filled with cut outs and changing lighting. Rumour has it Glen may or may not have been inspired by a namesake encountered at a festival, you decide…
“Cars are for Chumps”
Cars are for Chumps, unknown writer, central Christchurch, August 2019
What would this list be without some cheeky urban inscription? This was a personal favourite in August, from the legible form, to the content of the message, the seemingly impossible height, and the ellipsis ending, what’s not to like? Shout out to the writer (Setle?) and shout out to the walkers, skaters and cyclists, and to the city’s cycle lanes, who seemingly upset so many people to a disproportionate level…
O.K., first of all, apologies for this month’s And That Was… entry being so late (total blame at my feet, but let’s not get into that), but, as they say, better late than never! This month I asked the man about town himself, graffiti artist and photographer Aaron P.K. to run down a list of things that he enjoyed in Christchurch through the wintery month of July. Exactly as I had hoped for, he came back with a collection that touched on so many elements of Christchurch urban (and suburban) life; from small eateries, to the Christchurch Arts Festival and local music, and, of course, graffiti and street art. So, let’s see what made Aaron P.K.’s July…
Wild Dogs Under My Skirt/Christchurch Arts Festival
Posters for the 2019 Christchurch Arts Festival, including the stage production of Tusiata Avia’s Wild Dogs Under My Skirt. (Photo Credit: Aaron P.K.)
I was blessed to be given a ticket to Wild Dogs Under My Skirt, a theatre show based on the book of the same name by Christchurch poet Tusiata Avia that featured as a part of the Christchurch Arts Festival. It’s about Samoan womanhood, and it was both heavy and humorous, leaving me amazed. They did an awesome job with this year’s Arts Festival, with a huge amount of local artists, I wish I could have caught more of it.
Kool Aid – Family Portrait EP
Violet French’s artwork for the cover of Kool Aid’s Family Portrait EP (2019)
Christchurch band Kool Aid released an album, titled Family Portrait, in July and it’s really good. Listen to it here https://koolaidnz.bandcamp.com/ or you want a hard copy, buy the cassette at Ride On Super Sound.
Adventure Time
(Photo Credit: Aaron P.K.)
For a while I’d started to think Christchurch had ran out of neglected spaces where you could have a leisurely afternoon walk around and feel somewhat alone. This month I’ve been doing a lot of walking off the beaten path then down the goat trail and it’s been pretty rewarding…
Chanakya’s Dal Spinach
Chanakya in New Brighton (picture from Chanakya’s website)
I’ve been coming to Chanakya for a few years now. There’s always something new to try and in July I had their Dal Spinach for the first time and it’s now my favorite. They’re a small South Indian restaurant down the same alleyway as Bin Inn in New Brighton Mall and they’re definitely worth a trip out from Lyttelton…
Cathedral Junction Stickers
Stickers adorning a street sign in Cathedral Junction. (Photo Credit: Aaron P.K.)
I would have liked to have featured something a bit better in the graffiti/urban observation genre. Whenever I’ve seen something cool I haven’t thought to take a picture of it, but I did manage to snap this. It’s been quite a long month so it’s hard to recall what’s been popping up but I’ve enjoyed seeing what the new generation AOC have been up to. And Oink, Oink’s cool as well!
This month’s contributor to our And That Was… series is Christchurch artist Uncle Harold (also known as Josh Bradshaw). Known for his dripping constructions, including a recent body of nostalgic 90s cartoon characters, reimagined with melted and warped glitches, Uncle Harold took the opportunity to follow a slightly different path to our previous lists. Regularly crossing the city on foot or skateboard, Uncle Harold is a keen observer of the quirks of our cityscape. As a result, his June recap is less about events and examples of public art, and more about small details, things often overlooked by others, but that left some type of impression on his daily experiences. As he explains, these are not things “I intentionally set out to find”, these are things that “just happened to catch my eye on my daily walk to and from town, to work and the studio.” So, what caught Uncle Harold’s eye during the month of June?
Pikachu
Do you ever accidentally keep making eye contact with someone for way too long? That was me and this chalk Pikachu drawing on a sign for a Cathedral Junction restaurant. I walked past this at least twice a day, every day. I have never walked through and not stared at him. Eye contact. Every. Single. Time.
“I Want Death Please”
I’ve always liked this kind of graffiti. Half of the time it is not so much the tag itself, but the backstory I can instantly conjure up: the what, when, who and how that brought about its existence. It just so happens that in this case, I really do like the style as well, so it’s a win-win.
PKAY
Even if you aren’t familiar with this tag, I guarantee that you have seen it at least a million times without realising. I’m always on the lookout for new tags. I picked this one because I almost didn’t see it. On a fifty-metre long, plain grey wall, this little tag sits right in the middle. Having all the space in the world, this little guy hides perfectly in plain sight. Genius.
ZIG ‘Ski Mask’ sticker
I’ve always had a soft spot for stickers. From getting free stickers as a kid from skate shops, to now making my own, I often stop to check out sticker spots around town. I had just been given some stickers from ZIG the same day I spied this guy on my way home from work. Sketchy ski mask guy. How could you not love it? ZIG’s stickers are cool.
Grace
Again, I chose this one because of the complete lack of context and the imaginary backstory that it allows me to create. Who is Grace? Did this card ever reach her before it was lost? Does Grace know her friend loves that she is a “cute animal lover”? These questions, paired with the epic illustrations, ensured that I thought about his card way more than I should have. It was a no-brainer to go into my top 5.
Back at the beginning of the year, Ikarus shot me a heads up that Wellington and Aotearoa hip hop legend Juse1 (TS crew) was in town for the second annual New Zealand International Tattoo Expo and suggested I try and interview him. Much like Ikarus, Juse has a lengthy history in graffiti, but his exploits also spread across the realms of hip hop, notably as an MC. On his last day in town we finally got to sit down and have a chat, grabbing a coffee while local artists VROD and Sewer prepped a wall for a colab in the Hereford Street space. Not only is Juse a dope artist, with a can, a microphone or a tattoo needle, he is also a thoughtful figure whose experience has given him insight into graffiti writing, hip hop culture, the relativity of creative processes, and the importance of learning throughout life. Sitting down for a while and listening to him talk, it was clear that he has a lot of wisdom to pass on to the upcoming generations, much like he acknowledges having learnt from his influential mentors…
I know it’s your last day in town, but I will still say welcome to Christchurch! I was looking through your Instagram feed, and one of the things that I got to thinking about was the idea of tradition. Not in a regressive way, your work is always fresh, but there is a clear respect and reverence of the traditions of a lot of the different realms that you occupy, right? Is that a big thing for you?
Yeah, not always consciously pushing it as tradition, but I guess it’s my foundation and it’s something that I have learnt. I always found that when you plant a foundation and you decide to build from it, it is always going to influence some way or another the work you might be doing ten years, thirty years later. I guess in a way, I’ve never been one to drastically jump, whether it be my [graffiti] style or my rhymes. I guess it’s me as a person as well, I kind of tie that not only within hip hop, but also being of Samoan culture as well, it does play as an influence into my creative aspects. The culture is something that is sort of engrained in me, so it comes through. Learning history for me has always been really important, and I guess the more knowledge you gain from history, it influences what you do and how you go about doing things, and how you approach it from all the different perspectives you have, you know what I mean?
You mention those two elements: graffiti writing and rhyming. I have recently been reading a lot about pre-hip hop New York graffiti, the early seventies and the guys who were just as much listening to psychedelic rock, soul and disco, stuff like that, and I was thinking, New Zealand’s possibly a bit different. Because of the time graffiti arrived, you almost can’t remove it from hip hop, right? Hip hop and graffiti are so tightly entwined. Did you get into writing through hip hop as a culture, or did graffiti provide a pathway to the other elements of hip hop?
For me, it came with hip hop. Visually I saw graffiti first, like in the eighties, around my neighbourhood. There were dudes getting up and doing full pieces when I was a kid, but I didn’t know what it was because I was a kid. But when I actually started to get into it, and found out what it was, it was through hip hop, through early Source magazines, through album covers, stuff that my older brother would bring home. I was young so I couldn’t access it at all. Everyone caught a tagging buzz in like 1990, and from there, we just kind of grew. Like you were saying, it is linked with hip hop, but graffiti in itself, the energy of it, can relate to so many things and I guess that’s why so many people who don’t necessarily come from a hip hop background can relate to it just as well. It’s kind of universal in that way. The energy of graffiti is to get busy, it’s a movement in itself, but it can attach itself to all these different genres…
Juse1 on the mic at the Villains hip hop show in Hamilton
It has all these off-shoot variations…
Yeah, but personally, it was through hip hop for me. It was through the album covers and the magazines…
When people think about your hometown, Wellington, nowadays they probably think of the trendy hipsters…
The cafes! There’s a lot of coffee there, bro! (Laughs)
But Wellington is also such a key place for hip hop in Aotearoa; the Upper Hutt Posse, DLT… When you look back, do you appreciate that importance?
Yeah, I really do man. Growing up there, before I started travelling around and meeting other scenes, I took it a bit for granted. But going away and coming back, I realised that the city and the scene itself was special. I mean the city, in terms of the environment, allows for people to see each other often. It’s not a big city, but geographically it is centralised, and if you have got to do something, you all come to town. You can stand in the middle of Wellington and guarantee you are going to see at least three people you know. In regard to the hip hop scene, that was a real way for people to link, because everyone could get to one point, and just share whatever they had. I think with the hip hop scene in Wellington, I’m lucky enough that generations before me are still active and are still around, you know what I mean? It’s something I’ve noticed a bit more than in other cities. When I say generations, I mean people who go way back, watching That’s Incredible! [An American television show from the early eighties that became an important early influence on New Zealand hip hop due to performances by b-boy crews] There are still dudes that turn up to the graf walls, or the MC jams or battles, and you still see them. The benefit of having these local pioneers around is that the knowledge is shared, and the scene just grows from generation to generation…
That must be important due to the fact that comparatively, New Zealand has a smaller cultural history in that regard, right? Even looking at those older scenes around the world, many of the older participants kind of disappear and then pop back up, especially now that there are more platforms of exposure, if you think again about the figures from the early New York scene…
The guys who disappeared and then popped back up…
Yeah, like all the photos of Taki 183 at different events over the last few years. I think there was even a photo of Taki and Cornbread meeting for the first time not too far back…
That’s crazy! (Laughs)
So, in places where there is an older culture, those figures can ghost away and become legends, but when they are still around, as you say, it helps feed the culture, the traditions, but it also helps people develop because they can see that historical lineage, right there…
Yeah, if you ever had questions, they were around. The thing Wellington was known for across all the realms, was a being a little bit hard-headed in regard to teaching. If you weren’t doing it right, you were told you weren’t doing it right, you know what I mean? It wasn’t necessarily, do it like me, but just that you’re not doing it right, if that makes sense. It was a harder form of guidance and if you got shut down, you weren’t expected to stop and disappear, you were expected to go work on your shit and come back better. That was kind of the teaching through all of the elements of hip hop, from DJ’ing to b-boying, to writing and MC’ing. Even fashion sense, like if you were trying to rock some new shit and nobody was feeling it, you got told: ‘That’s just wack, bro, don’t come back to the gig looking like that!’ (Laughs) In a way a lot of people, from outside the scene, thought that it was quite snobby, or kind of elitist, but to me it was just a firmer hand to teaching, you know? It wasn’t as cutthroat as people thought it was, but it appeared that way. I definitely see why people can see it that way…
‘Cake’ piece by Juse1, 2016
Does that approach help crystallise your own views? That hard-headed-ness, as you say, it’s not, ‘do it this way’, it’s just, you’re not doing it correctly, and surely that helps crystallise an approach in your own head because you are being forced to think about it more and more….
Yeah, it does…
So, did that ensure that you developed a strong, enduring philosophy about letterforms, and how you make letters? Obviously for a lot of people, there’s a science behind their construction of letters, and some people talk in great detail about how they build depth and use negative space, those sorts of things. Is that something that you have developed through that expectation of having to go away and perfect something?
Yeah, definitely, like not just in the elements of hip hop, but life in general, you’ve got to keep learning and studying, especially if you love what you do, and you want to rock it for a while. You should take your own time and discipline to really break down exactly what you are doing, why you are doing it, and yeah, it definitely relates to that teaching that if I wasn’t doing this right, how do I make it right? Not just to please someone else, but for yourself. How can you get the best out of every letter for example? Like, if you’re doing a five letter wildstyle, one letter itself has to be dope before you start doing the next letter, then the next letter, then the whole thing is going to be dope. So, stripping away all the bells and whistles of a letter really helps. For me, each letter, each angle, each arrow, has to be on, you know what I mean? That teaching definitely helped with that, you can’t just be throwing shit around, because it doesn’t really have a foundation or a sense of why it comes from there…
Semi wildstyle by Juse1, 2018
The other aspect is that when it comes to things like composition, colour, balance, those formal aspects, the beauty of graffiti is that it’s not beholden to established ideas that that they would teach in painting classes, right?
Yeah, like red and pink don’t go together, that sort of shit?! (Laughs) Graffiti writing is anti-establishment in most ways…
Yeah, so in graffiti you can find any sort of combination that pops or reflects some idea or reality, or is simply created out of necessity, right? You had these colours, it was what you could get, so that’s what your painting…
That’s it, that’s what you had. But also, the drive was to be seen, to be noticed, so smashing together colour combos was how you achieved that.
At the same time, because you’re not necessarily subject to the normal expectations, you do need that kind of guidance I guess in some way, but you’ve also got that freedom to experiment within all of those things as well…
Yeah, that’s it. You need some knowledge of foundations in all aspects of life.
‘Juser’ piece by Juse1
Having been active for quite a while, what’s your take on Wellington’s, and more broadly New Zealand’s, graffiti scenes at the moment? Can you define scenes from city to city anymore, or is it becoming too difficult?
Nah, it’s muddy! I’m not saying that it’s wack, but in previous eras you could see definite influences from prior writers instantly. Nationwide you could see it, from generation to generation to generation. You could almost see what the writers were doing at the time, and who they were looking at around the local scene. I’m not saying they were biting, but the influence was there, the style was there. You could define writers from Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch, all quite clearly. I’m just talking about New Zealand at the moment, but on a global scale, I think now, you can’t really tell who is from where, because people take influences from everywhere, and put it into one piece, which again isn’t a bad thing, because everything changes and everyone experiments, and with graffiti, it opens up. It’s a realm where there are no rules. I suppose, it’s like, you could do what you want, just make it look dope, you know what I mean? I guess for me though it started changing, and the internet has had a huge influence. You have more access to stuff than ever; you can see shit from anywhere. But the other thing, the biggest thing, is that people stopped learning from other writers, and started self-teaching. To an extent that can be detrimental because you don’t really find out the whole knowledge on it…
Things aren’t just done for one singular reason, right? There’s always more going on as to why something is the way it is, and you need that depth of knowledge to really push it further, otherwise you are only getting that first layer…
And even on top of that, it had a wider effect on crews, because people were going out and learning from pictures, they didn’t really need other people to bounce ideas off or get energy from. I notice a lot of writers are solo these days, they don’t really roll as big crews anymore. Crews had heaps of roles back in the day, like for protection, if you go to a wall in numbers and shit, it became about strength in numbers to a certain extent. But at the same time, the unity of writers is kind of breaking down, it’s more about: ‘I’m doing this’, ‘I’m going to do that…’ So yeah, it’s kind of muddy in the sense of style and influence…
‘Cake’ piece by Juse1, 2015
There’s possibly also more mobility as well, right? Like, going back to that global scale, it’s easier to travel now. Also, while it is still a youth culture, it’s not only a youth culture, because you now have people who make their life travelling and painting, right? So, there is definitely a different sense of fluidity and the flow of information and influence is making it all a different game… What about Christchurch and what’s going on here in terms of what you have seen over the last few days?
I’ve been here for a few days, and it’s been a while since I’ve been down, like four years I think, so having a look around is good. I was talking to Ikarus, who obviously is one of the main dudes here, and the older guys in the scene are doing a good job from what I can see, because there is a lot of influence. There’s a range of styles around which is cool as well. But also, people are putting a bit of effort into their burners. When you see people getting down next to each other they make the whole piece work, and you can tell there’s a bit of teamwork going in there, there is a shared understanding. I also haven’t seen much crossing out or capping. You guys have got way more walls than ever now, so there’s probably no reason to cross out people! (Laughs) But I like what I see in the Christchurch scene, there are dudes that just specifically do characters and do them well, there are guys that do backgrounds, and then there are guys rocking letters. There are still a lot of hits around too, which I like, even though there are a lot of legal spaces, people are still bombing and tagging. It looks healthy…
Because of the story here, the murals get all the attention, but of course, when you are thinking about the scene from within the culture, that whole spectrum is important, right? There are the hits, as you say, the handstyles, as well as the throwies and rollers, and when your eyes are open in a certain way, you get as amped seeing a nicely executed throw-up as you do a massive piece…
Yeah, for sure. A throwie, man, if the flow is all there, if you can tell they did it all in one line, man! One-line throwies, whoever masters that shit, that’s hard to do! Especially depending on your name. So, yeah, the scene here looks healthy, man. I guess on the flip side, compared to Wellington, there are dudes who are definitely in the scene, bombing and tagging, but not really pushing it much further, if that makes sense. And of course, not everyone wants to. Some people just want to fuck shit up, and that’s cool, that’s the energy of hip hop. There were a few crews coming through a few years ago, but they all seem to have stopped for some reason, and it makes me wonder why? I’ve been talking to Ikarus about what he’s been doing here, and it’s been good knowledge, it’s been good bouncing energy off someone who has been around the same time as me and has seen everything.
I was talking to Berst a while ago, and he said he found over time that there is this kind of five-year cycle for crews to blow up, to become really prominent, and then disappear, and a new crew comes up. I found that interesting because it is sort of indicative of a certain age range, of ‘growing up’…
Yeah, life comes up! Families and shit, jobs, and then people either stop or they keep pushing. I’ve known some real dope writers, from all ends of the scale, some real style masters, and they just stopped, they don’t paint anymore, and again, it makes you kind of question, why?
Changing direction a little bit, you are down here for the Christchurch International Tattoo Expo, which is another of your creative outlets. There is a strong relationship between graffiti and tattoo. In my mind at least, there are several things that suggest why that relationship was fostered; there’s sort of an outsider quality to both, there’s the idea of that alternative canvas, although in each case very different canvasses or spaces to master, and then there are skills you learn writing graffiti that translate into tattoo, like that certainty of line and mark-making. I’m always fascinated watching someone write a tag to see the refined and certain flow of movement of their hand and arm, how almost intuitive or engrained that movement is. Does that relate as a big part of that transition between graffiti and tattooing?
That definitely does, that fluidity of line and being sure of it, because especially when you’re painting you’ve got to know your start and stops and techniques, and so that mindset comes into play. I say mindset because the physical aspect of it is different, with tattoo you have a 3D surface, so a straight line is no longer a straight line, it’s a curve, and its permanent! (Laughs) It moves, and it cries, and it bleeds, it does all that shit! (Laughs)
Custom freehand tatau by Juse1
It also has a different scale, right?
That’s the other thing, going from painting something humungous to miniscule, that’s kind of a mindfuck at first! But composition is important for a writer anyway. You’ve got to transform your outline from an A4 sketch to a painting a couple of metres wide, so you’ve already got that transition of blowing shit up. The same mindset applies to bringing it back down. I feel like it doesn’t take too long to adjust if you have a writing background, because tattooing is a natural progression for a lot of graffiti writers. But I also think tattooing, like graf, allows all walks of life into it, you can come from any background and make something dope. Definitely, the technical side of things, drawing and just being active, in that sense, translates really well into tattooing. Even the idea that when you are bombing, or painting, you don’t actually touch the wall, you don’t touch the surface, and in a way when you are tattooing you don’t really touch the skin, the needle does, but you do float a bit. So, there are those elements that translate as well. People bug out about how you can go from a fat cap to a fine round liner, but it’s good, I find it really good for me in the sense of balance. If I’ve been tattooing all day, I find it relaxing to go out and bomb something big. It’s different. Switching energies is good. Then vice-versa, before I was tattooing, I was actively doing a lot of painting, commissioned works were my day to day, and to sort of swap that for day to day tattooing, it was a nice shift, you know…
‘Tiger Style’ custom Wu Tang ink by Juse1
Is the blackbook work the middle ground that sits between the two?
Yeah, that’s the grey area! Fuck, that’s a good way to put it…
What about that flow of influence? Do you now find that one influences the other more, or is it quite an equal flow? Does what you are doing tattoo-wise start to influence more of your writing, or does what you are painting influence the tattooing?
It hasn’t yet. For me, with writing, I’m still pushing my own development in letter style. I’ve always been a fan of wildstyle, like well-balanced interlocking, overlapping, twisting around wildstyle. That’s something that even though I’ve been doing it for twenty years, I still don’t feel like I’m mastering what I want to do in my head, so every piece I do I’m pushing a little bit toward that. When it comes to tattooing influences, I guess, the only part that has come through in my writing has been my Samoan background and adding elements of that to my graffiti, and there are a couple of reasons. I was doing that before I was tattooing. Guys like DLT, Daniel Tippett, Opto, Agent and also the legendary FDKNS crew, and for a while, Phat1, they were using moko within their work, and I started using tatau and elements of the Pacific. Dyle was another cat rocking his Tongan patterns in there too. This was in letters and not just in backgrounds and stuff. What I noticed was that nobody puts the Pacific on the map in regard to writing. We could rock letters all we want, but if you put it up next to another piece, you are not going to necessarily say these guys are from Aotearoa or the South Pacific. So, it was more about claiming our identity of who we are. Our original influence was from New York in a big way, but it was important for us to put our hands up and say we love to do this too, how can we make it our own? Not through style necessarily, but by adding what we know is who we are to our work, and I don’t mean just putting some island background, or some trees, I mean adding to the letters, adding to the piece, creating something out of that…
Juse1 in mid-burner action, tatau forming the fill…
Actually changing the letterforms, because the letters become the vessel, right? They are a form to subvert, so by making those relate specifically to that cultural influence is important and unique…
Like having a taiaha for an ‘I’, or a hook or a weapon as a letter, because letters are symbols, alphabets are full of symbols, and the way they can interrelate like that is awesome. And it actually works, I’ve had people from New York, pioneers of the game, say: ‘I really like what you guys do…’ They don’t understand it at first, but they like it. (Laughs) But once we told them, they would be like: ‘Oh shit, amazing!’ So yeah, we are adding an older artform on top of an artform, to grow and create something new, which I think is dope…
Absolutely, and there is a rich visual culture to draw on from Polynesian culture. You also just touched on something that I have to ask about, looking through your Instagram feed, there are pictures with Crazy Legs and members of the Wu Tang Crew, in hindsight, is it hard to believe some of the people you’ve met?
Everyone! I count myself blessed in many ways, in that not only through the graffiti side, but also through the MC side, I’ve met a lot of people I’ve literally learned from, through their albums, through their artworks. I never ever imagined that one day I’d be touring with Ghostface [Killah] or having a cipher with the RZA, or one with the GZA, on separate occasions, smoking a joint with Method Man, meeting KRS One, Nas, all these cats bro. Then on the graf side, and even the other elements, I’ve met Mr Wiggles, kicked it with Crazy Legs. There’s too many to name. I kind of forget, and I’m like, fuck that actually happened! But one of my mentors, Kerb1, he told me many, many, many years ago that real hip hop is a small world. I didn’t really get what he meant by that. But now, twenty years later, I think it means that the energy that is shared amongst like minds, means names and fame don’t really come into it, because real recognises real. If you can get on a certain level, and connect on a certain level with that person, it’s good…
‘Style So Sick’ TS Crew colab, Juse1, Ceaper, Kerb1 and Reakt
Do you think that is partly because hip hop was born, specifically in Washington Heights, but in those neighbourhoods, those boroughs, and that mentality of small scenes, even though it went global, hasn’t really changed in terms of understanding or connecting with people…
That’s what it’s about. The elements are tools, and the tools connect communities and people. When people say hip hop, they think of the music of course, because that’s the most commercially recognised thing. But when you break it right down, hip hop is about community, and it’s about people, without people there’s no hip hop, you know what I mean? Hip hop was the tool to help celebrate people being together, or how to connect with another person. So that mentality, from a small borough, no one thought it was going to go worldwide when they started it, but the energy that was created is recognised throughout the world because it happens everywhere, and like you say, that’s what brings people together…
The need for connection is universal. Nearly every subculture has that power to a degree, but for hip hop it is so holistic, because it combines music, dance, visual arts… It takes all the cultural ideas you need to make a deep, sustainable culture, rather than just one primary aspect. Having those four elements makes it so cohesive and inclusive…
It makes it accessible to everyone too, like if you can’t dance, you might be able to paint, if you can’t paint, you might be able to scratch…
I think I remember reading in a Source magazine article years ago a description of the four elements, with the MC as the bratty little sibling who makes all noise…
The loud one! (Laughs)
The DJ was the quiet studious middle child…
The watcher, the observer.
Then graffiti was the black sheep, the older one who left home…
The one who bailed! The rebel who leads everyone else astray! That’s sounds about right! I like that description!
Juse1 character next to VROD piece, New Brighton, Christchurch, 2019
Thanks for sitting down, it’s been awesome to get some insight from your long involvement in the game, and across different realms too…
It’s not as long as some people, but I’m still there! (Laughs)
Sure, but for some people five years is an age…
For sure, I never thought our crew would hit the twenty-year mark, but we did, and we are looking at thirty years soon. Three of us started the TS crew back in 1996, and I never thought it would develop into what it is now, so yeah, it’s a good thing. But like I said, having those pioneers still around has been important. My bro Kerb, he’s been around since 1983 and he’s still writing to this day, he is still a huge influence in what our crew do. So yeah, I guess it is a long time! (Laughs) I’ve been around a bit, but it’s a crack up, these young cats that Ikarus hooked me up with while I’m here [Sewer and VROD], I was telling them about some of the history here, and they were like: ‘Oh, have you been to Christchurch before?’ Twenty years ago was my first time here in Christchurch, I was here in 2000 for the Hip Hop Summit. They were like: ‘I was born then!’ (Laughs) It’s good though, to meet the next generation and kick it with them, to see where they are coming from. I need to do more of it in Wellington…
