This snapshot ‘photo essay’ of doors from across the city is the first of a series of articles that will be presented by various contributors, exploring their fascinations with urban art and the urban terrain. From doors to ‘bandos’, tags to slaps, the buff to responses to official communication, many people with an ear to the ground find interest in the smaller, peripheral incarnations of urban space. This series, titled ‘For the Love of…’ will reveal these quirks, letting the images talk over words…
I have long been fascinated with the city’s deteriorated and graffiti-covered doors. In the post-quake landscape and beyond, such doors have provided a symbolic quality, exacerbating the raft of aesthetic appearances. Much like fences, they provide a conflation of ideology and physicality. As passages between spaces, they are portals and obstacles, but also flat, defined surfaces that are perfect to be adorned. The humanity of doors as passages is also evidenced by the tags, throw-ups, stickers and characters that represent the presence of those executing them, as if these invaders have been kept at bay, yet defiantly left their mark regardless, like a calling card. In other cases they have been left covered in paint while the surrounding walls have been whitewashed, creating an intriguing juxtaposition. You may simply see a door as a functional element of architecture, but for me, they are infinitely more interesting…
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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…
Spread the word about what's happening in the Christchurch urban art scene:
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…
Watch This Space intern Millie Peate-Garratt recently caught up with Rosie Mac, one of the artists behind the beguiling Grove of Intention mural that has sprung forth in Westpac Lane on Hereford Street. While somewhat outside of our usual take on urban art, the Grove provides an example of the community-centric and participatory muralism that has become a feature of Christchurch’s public art profile, including works such as Richard ‘Popx’ Baker’s work with young people on Colombo Street several years ago, or more recently, Kyla Kuzniarski’s project with local school children in New Brighton. The Grove of Intention proved a slightly different approach again, as Millie found out…
The Beginnings: Two Friends…
Rosie Mac is a certified Intentional Creativity Facilitator and artist from Christchurch. Upon witnessing friend and Californian artist Kerry Lee create five murals in less than a year, Mac asked herself: “How can I contribute to my community?” The result was a grove of ‘Intention Trees’ painted in central Christchurch. In December 2018, funding for the mural was approved by the Christchurch City Council, and sponsorship for Lee’s travel to Christchurch was secured through Spark. Mac also secured sponsorship from Resene Paints NZ Ltd, for the paint and accessories required to complete the mural. With this support, the project was realised…
“Rosie Mac and I are very excited to bring this beautiful, meaningful interactive experiential mural to the residents and visitors at Christchurch where the seven trees can provide insightful moments for many years to come. Our dreams are to have these murals throughout the world!” – Kerry Lee
The Grove of Intention
The Hereford Street grove is the largest series of ‘Intention Trees’ produced in the world. A procession of seven stylised metallic gold trees (inspired by Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt), the public were invited to give one-word answers to the questions posed by each tree. The results were then represented as unfurling, sprawling branches, imbuing the work with a communal, living quality. At the public unveiling and celebration, visitors were invited to write their one-word answers on a paper leaf and add it to the tree temporarily, before Lee and Mac painted these words onto the tree branches, expanding the blossoming sentiments. The trees are also surrounded by symbols of various elements of each tree’s central concern, economically ensuring every detail is loaded with meaning.
The Seven Trees
Each tree asks a specific question, where the answers require both self-reflection and an awareness of our shared spaces and experiences. When people approached the tree, participants were invited to write a single word intention on a leaf. By distilling their ‘intention’ or response into one word, participants discovered the essence and empowerment in their expression. Participants wrote their word on paper, were witnessed saying it aloud, and then added it to the tree to be read by others. This experience created a resonant connection, each leaf holding special power in creating the whole. In addition to the words, whimsical birds of Aotearoa were painted perched upon each tree, adding a playful quality, while vitally, fifty thumbprints, representing those lost in the March Terror Attacks, were added in an act of memorialisation. So what questions did the trees pose?
Tree One: The Wish Tree
What is one big wish you have for yourself?
Tree Two: The Peace Tree
What is one wish you have for the world?
Tree Three: The Wellbeing Tree
What nourishes your soul?
Tree Four: The Connection Tree
Where in Christchurch is your favourite place to be in conversation?
Tree Five: The Wisdom Tree
What is one thing you know for sure?
Tree Six: The Gratitude Tree
What are you grateful for?
Tree Seven: The Witness Tree
How do you help improve the world?
The Grove of Intention adds another layer to the visual adornment of Christchurch’s ever-changing urban landscape. While visually intricate, the real power is found in the intention, the execution and the sentiment. Creating a visual manifestation of real community participation, the mural operates on multiple levels. It might not have the flashes of technical wizardry of some of the city’s iconic contemporary urban art murals, but it undeniably highlights the importance of communal action, expression and the diverse creative uses of public space…
This month we continue with a guest contributor to our ‘And That Was…’ series. Since the start of the year, Millie Peate-Garratt has been working for Watch This Space as an intern through the Pace Programme at The University of Canterbury. For the last few months Millie has been hard at work developing our social media and generally being awesome, so we thought it would be a good idea to ask her to compile the ‘And That Was… May 2019’ list. From optical illusions to protests and video premieres, here is what Millie enjoyed throughout the month of May…
The S.A.L.T Mural – Evolution Square
SALT Mural, Dcypher and Paul Walters, with OiYOU! Street Art, Evolution Square, Tuam Street, 2019
This stunning optical illusion signals the inner-city return of OiYou! Street Art, who worked with local hero Dcypher and Paul Walters of Identity Signs, on this new addition to Evolution Square. Dcypher and Walters co-designed the transformative piece, drawing on their unique skill-sets to create a collusion of urban art and sign work. The mural was marked out simply with a pencil, ruler and three templates, with all the straight lines skilfully hand painted. Reading SALT and Ōtautahi in 3D, the piece beautifully alters the unconventional surface of the building in the newly branded S.A.L.T district (framed by St Asaph, Lichfield and Tuam Streets). The project kicks off the goal to bring street art to the blossoming area, with new buildings and shops in need of art to transform blank walls. This playful, spatial piece has done just that!
Community Projects – The Grove of Intention
The Connection Tree, The Grove of Intention, Rosie Mac and Kerry Lee with the people of Christchurch,Hereford Street, 2019
Christchurch has been host to a rising number of community-centric mural projects, providing a different presence from the collection of graffiti and street art landmarks. In May, I met with one of the creators of the Grove of Intention project, Rosie Mac. The Grove of Intention is the largest work of its kind in the world; a series of seven Gustav Klimt inspired metallic gold trees, inviting the public to give one-word answers to the questions posed by each tree. Providing a point of difference through its communal and participatory nature, which is as important as the visual manifestation, the Grove of intention is a unique addition to the Christchurch CDB.
Public Protests
Anonymous sticker, ‘Egg the Racists’, central Christchurch, 2019Extinction Rebellion poster, central Christchurch, 2019
May has witnessed a number of protests and public conversations targeting social or political change. While this may seem a strange inclusion in this list, the energy of public activism is an important aspect of urban art’s history and potential – from scrawled messages in unexpected locations, to the placards and banners artists such as Keith Haring, JR and Hanksy have contributed to public demonstrations over the years (not to mention the humorous versions created by Banksy). The value of utilising public space to express the desire to be heard and for change, from striking teachers, to environmental activism posters and anti-racism stickers, is a central tenant of urban expression and reveals an engaged and active citizenry.
FAUP Crew – 2 FAUP 2 FURIOUS Video Premiere at Fiksate
2 Faup 2 Furious video premiere, Fiksate Gallery, May 20192 Faup 2 Furious video premiere, Fiksate Gallery, May 2019
On a cold Saturday night in mid-May, local skate crew FAUP took over inner-city gallery Fiksate to present the premiere of their latest video 2 FAUP 2 Furious. The event attracted a impressive turn out, with people crammed inside the gallery and pouring outside onto the Gloucester Street footpath. The vibe was enthusiastic and infectious, with the crowd living every trick, failed or nailed, documented in the funny, heartfelt production, a celebration of youthful, DIY spirit and the anarchic urban freedom of skateboarding
New stencils around town…
Unknown artist, stencil, NG building, Lichfield Street, 2019
One thing I have quickly learned is how street art and graffiti are ever-changing. One of the fun aspects of this state of flux is never knowing what will be and what will disappear. This May, I have been enjoying seeing new stencils popping up around central Christchurch, and this life-sized, ghostly apparition is a favourite. I would love to know the artist behind it, but the anonymity is also a powerful element…
So there is Millie’s top five from May 2019, let us know if there was something that caught your eye during the month, or if you have any reflections on Millie’s choices…
Spread the word about what's happening in the Christchurch urban art scene:
This month, we are stoked to welcome a guest contributor to our And That Was… series: the man behind the Instagram feed Rubble City (@rubblecity), Gavin Fantastic. The idea of this series is to cover a wide selection of what’s happening in Christchurch’s urban art scenes, so it was natural to throw our net wider and make use of those people, like Gavin, with their fingers, and cameras, on the pulse. Rubble City is a go-to feed for fresh, and often highly temporary, pieces of art across Christchurch. So, what has been on Gavin’s radar in April? Read on to find out…
Hambone
Local artist Hambone is certainly setting the scene alight lately with his neo-trad style characters. From pumas with snakes to gorillas armed with bananas, the characters are certainly eye-catching.
As the nights get longer the ability to lurk in the shadows also increases for those smashing the scene.
Two artists who have been dropping nasty steez are V-Rod and Vesyl. It has been interesting watching the style of these two artists evolve over the last couple of years from tags and rollers, to the next level pieces seen this April.
Our walls have been graced with additions by painters from afar this month. Showing how the other side of the world gets down were two of Europe’s finest. Resr47 was throwing down snow-capped letters from the Swiss Alps, while Desur managed to fit in a couple of Hamburg burners during his stint at local tattoo studio Otautahi Tattoo.
Situated next to World on High Street, Yikes’ pop-up shop hit my Insta feed (and my wallet!) this month. The man from DTR is selling both originals and prints in a space that is occupied for the next few months selling eclectic furniture. Check it out and support your local artist!
Jacob Yikes’ pop-up shop, High Street, central Christchurch, 2019 (photo credit: Gavin Fantastic)
RIP Jungle
As featured in the ‘And that was … March’ blog post, we saw the passing of local O.G. Jungle. Tributes have been popping up all over Christchurch City and around the world. I’ll sign off with a tribute piece from two other 03 O.Gs – Yikes & Ikarus.
Caelan Walsh is a thoughtful guy. The often faceless and pseudonymous nature of graffiti writing leads to perception of graffiti writers as senseless destructive forces. Caelan is eloquent and intelligent, and importantly, well-versed in the complexities and contradictions of both the world of graffiti, but also of the public perceptions. He also represents the tensions graffiti writers feel when moving into the realm of commissioned work, and the dreaded sphere of the ‘street art muralist’ (dum-dum-dummm!). In the latter stages of last year, with support from Watch This Space, Gap Filler and the Enliven Places fund, Caelan produced a sprawling ‘kiwiana’ mural on Tuam Street. Walsh segmented the long wall into an angular geometric grid populated with icons of Aotearoa; from a gumboot wearing farmer, sheep, and a rugby-playing kiwi, to a horde of sunglass-wearing penguins, a tuatara, a pohutakawa tree, and the tino rangatiratanga flag. Laced with bright colours and patterns that differentiate each segment, the playful comic stylings are a perfect fit for the still in-progress area, with Gap Filler’s pump track sitting directly in front. After a long back and forth to actually sit down and chat (this seems to be a theme with my interviews!), when we did, Caelan deftly jumped between a range of topics, including graffiti history, the various ‘moods’ of the culture and how he navigates those divergences, and his experience on the pump track wall…
Let’s start by talking about the ‘kiwiana’ mural you completed along the Gap Filler ‘Roll with It’ pump track on Tuam Street. How did that project come about?
Thanks to you guys! (laughs) I kind of got thrown in the deep end on that one! It was the first properly commissioned wall I’ve painted, full stop, and on top of that, it was also the biggest wall I’ve ever painted, so it was obviously pretty intimidating. That’s why I came up with the idea of sectioning the wall up into smaller parts, each with different images and colours. Along with trying utilise all the space effectively to avoid it getting tagged through. I could look at it as twenty-two smaller pieces rather than one big wall, which would have been more intimidating…
I imagine that the idea of segmenting it up into pieces was necessary when you haven’t had a lot of experience working on commissioned murals of that size. Your background in graffiti means that even with bigger pieces, you are often collaborating, and as such you are using a smaller space rather than the entire wall, so is that must have been quite a big change…
Yeah, definitely. There were other challenges too. I’m horrible at working with colours. I just can’t put them together. So, a lot of the time when I’m painting, I’ll push other people to come up with a colour scheme, so it’s like: ‘Cool, whatever you said, we are doing that 100%’! But, working on my own and having to conceptualise that on a larger scale, it was definitely something that I couldn’t plan ahead. A lot of the colour choices were made by starting with just picking one colour up and going from there. Obviously, then in the section next to it I would use a different colour to create that contrast and develop it from there. Then I would step back from the wall and think, oh I haven’t got enough pink in that section, I’ll work with pink now…
Do you approach graffiti pieces with that openness to change as well? When you are working on a piece, do you have a strong idea of how you want it to look, or are you open to change as well?
With graffiti, I really have quite a strict idea in my head of how I want the process to work, and how I want it to sit on the wall. But I also don’t like to complete a sketch because I feel as though then it has become its own entity, and then you are just replicating something until it’s completed on the wall and there’s not really much fun in that. So, sometimes I’ve gone to walls with three different sketches and I might like different parts of each one and there will be other ideas in my head as well. So, I guess if you were to look at my sketches, they would look like big scribbles, but they will turn on different lights in my head…
So, when you are drawing or sketching for a piece, it’s not so much about creating a plan as it is exploring ideas that you can then explore further on a wall. But with a commissioned mural you often have to show a more developed idea and some kind plan, which means they are necessarily distinct processes for you…
Yeah, I think I was pushed a lot more with the mural work because obviously the owners and everyone involved wants a proper idea. With Graffiti, my basic style or structure is in my head, I can see it already on the wall, but when I’m explaining a mural to people, often I can tell that they don’t really get it until they physically see a drawing of it. So, that was a big challenge for me, because like I said, I don’t like finishing sketches, I like it to be more open, especially going from ballpoint pen to using a spray can, there are completely different effects involved. I am definitely more confident with a spray can than a brush or a pen. I can’t show that I’m going to shade here or have some drips going down here…
Collaboration with Tepid (left) and Dove (centre), New Brighton, 2019
Technology is making that transition easier though, at least in some respects, right? I was recently watching a video of someone using a Posca pen with a Crayola add-on airbrush piece, to create the effect of a tiny spray can painting a stencil. Obviously, there are problematic elements to the embrace of technology, but it must at least make some of that transition easier…
I think with some of the programmes they have on iPad’s and that sort of thing now, it is crazy the different ways you can digitally replicate how you would paint on a wall. It is not something I’ve had a chance to muck around with a lot, but in some of the work I’ve done with Dove especially, he’s used that technology to map out how something would sit on a wall, and that just makes a crazy difference when it comes to actually visualising a large-scale project…
Collection of sketches, 2018/2019
Do you have a process to scale up from a sketch to a wall? Often artists have a specific approach that is slightly different depending on the individual…
For me, it’s the same with everything; graffiti, murals, I just start by taking steps. I step out the length of the wall. Say it is twenty steps and then for example, if it’s piecing, and you’ve got four people, sweet, you’ve each got five steps, and I just mark it out and work from there…
Even that simple approach, it essentially represents one of graffiti’s core attributes: the ability to solve problems. There’s always been that DIY nature, where you can do more with less by problem solving. You are constantly having to overcome problems when you are painting graffiti or making art in the streets in that manner, and that’s why I guess that transition to large-scale work is so achievable, because of the skillsets you pick up painting without permission, or painting without the support mechanisms of a studio space, or a commission…
In terms of proportions, even with my graffiti, my work is quite mathematical. I guess it ruins some of the natural flow when you explain it, but I’m literally looking at the first line I did on the wall and following it from there. I’ve got maths going in my head, like, that width between each line is twenty centimetres, so I should make it about that the whole way through. I’m stepping back and judging widths of the letters themselves and the space between them along with the thickness of each individual line itself. So, I’m actually thinking about how certain attributes that come later will affect the piece as well, especially adding shadows, it’s something a lot of people seem to struggle with, but there’s almost a mathematical formula to how a piece sits on the wall. I also use shadow to help add dimension to my pieces rather than one flat image sitting on a wall, so it is a series of intertwined connections overlapping and underlapping each other.
Game piece with Dove character, Christchurch, 2017 (Photo credit: Caelan Walsh)
With drop shadows and those types of effects, it is literally mathematical, right? It is about the angle created by the light source, the angle you are trying to project and those types of things. It’s also something where you can fall onto either side, though, right? You can be looser, more chance driven, and all about how it looks and feels, or you can be more precise and adhere to spatial relationships and certain effects that you are trying to achieve. Your graffiti letter style is kind of angular and quite strong in its line work, do you that comes out through that kind of mathematical approach?
Like you said, you can go either of two ways with it. I’ve probably wished I was more comfortable doing a more natural approach, but like I was saying earlier, my pieces are very controlled. To add even more mathematics and numbers, I’m also always trying to add my work into a certain slot of where I feel comfortable. Like, I want to do pieces at the moment, I need to do everything in my head that justifies it being a piece, to then fit into that slot where I can be like: ‘O.K., now I’ve done forty-seven pieces.’ If it’s missing certain elements to it, then I can’t class it as a piece.
So, there’s a classification process going on in how you are building your body of work?
Yeah, so, it’s something that I’m almost forcefully trying to do. I’m sort of restricting myself. I’m not going out as much and doing more creative stuff, stuff off the top of my head, because in my mind, that would fit into a different slot. Which is perfectly fine, it’s just my sense of control makes want to be able to categorise what I am doing…
Social piece, Auckland, 2010 (Photo credit: Caelan Walsh)
Is there an end goal in mind then when you are taking that approach?
Like you were saying, it is just building a body of work. Not so much to show other people, it’s more just self-confidence, knowing that I have got that body of work behind me. That will allow me to feel more comfortable going out and doing weirder, less-appropriate sort of things…
Does it give you a good sense of how far you have progressed already? Does it become obvious to you?
Yeah, with my letters at the moment, I do make some dramatic changes, but generally speaking, each piece I paint, I’m trying to develop one letter. So, there are four letters in the name I write, right now I’m working on developing the ‘O’, so if you look back at previous works, the other letters will be the same, but the ‘O’ will be different. The next piece, I might decide I’m happy with the ‘O’, so I will start developing the ‘D’, so then, like everything, you will actually see the natural progression of how it’s changing. Right now, I’m actually reverting back to a lot of my earlier work from the beginning of last year, stylistically, because I feel like I drifted off in the wrong direction and now I’m going back to that body of work and seeing where I was going with that. That’s why having that control of doing a piece is important I guess, I can see where I was going wrong, or what I need to do instead. Even with that amount of control, you still make mistakes. I’m not particularly happy with my style at the moment, I think it has sort of regressed a bit over the last few months and that’s why I’m looking at the older work and hopefully bringing it back…
Character piece, Auckland, 2016 (Photo credit: Caelan Walsh)
That’s a really mature, thoughtful approach. Was that compulsive element, repeating a tag or developing letters over time, was that always one of the attractions of graffiti for you? And how do you relate that sort of approach to commissioned projects? Do they require a slightly different approach?
You could definitely say I am a bit obsessive compulsive and that definitely is evident in the way I paint. With the commissioned work, I think as long as you get the O.K., I’m a lot more open to switching things up. The pump track mural, I did control that a lot as well, specifically to ensure it had that more comic effect, with very bold colours. There were a lot of parts, especially the birds, where I would have liked to have thrown in more detail, but it would have taken away from the rest of the mural. Although I knew there was more that I could add, I had to control myself and let it be what it was. But now, after doing that, I’m definitely a lot more confident in being able to wing it a bit more, to chuck my own flavour in there. There are definitely challenges that come with painting concepts and ideas that I have never really attempted on paper, let alone a wall.
Commissioned work also generally allows more longevity. You can often physically revisit a work over a longer period. Does that affect your thinking as well? Which reminds me; we were just told that your mural will stay in place for longer than originally thought as well, the project has just been extended, which is good news! So, what is that shifting mindset like between a work that might only be there for a day and then disappear, and a work that is somewhat more protected? For someone who is so analytical and thoughtful, is it tricky constantly being reminded of a work, thinking I could’ve done this, I could’ve done that…
Yeah, absolutely, especially with that mural, because I was working between a lot of other commitments. There were a lot of hurdles I had to get over, so it ended up taking a month and half of on and off days. So, yeah there were a lot of sleepless nights thinking about something I really wanted to do before I forgot about it. I was borrowing my friend’s ladder, and near the end I just got him to pick it up so I couldn’t really do anymore work without having to organise more stuff. It was almost a case of someone having to just take the can out of my hand and be like, that’s enough, it’s’ done.
Collaboration with Dove, Hereford Street carpark, 2019 (Photo credit: Caelan Walsh)
I guess when you are having a jam, generally you are looking to finish within a shorter time frame, although there are other reasons you might finish when you finish, but with the longer time afforded a commissioned work, it is probably good to have some limit imposed on you…
Yeah, well, graffiti is incredibly speed-based, especially in New Zealand. It is almost frowned upon to spend any longer than a day on a piece, although, in my opinion, if your piece needs three days of work, then put three days in, make it the best possible.
Some of that comes down to the spot though, right?
It’s definitely tossing it up a little bit. But yeah, with my pieces, especially doing the fill and the initial outline, I am sweating trying to just get it done, to get the piece up on the wall. Then I will spend the same amount of time just tidying it up, stepping back and looking at it. My main goal is to try and finish it before everyone else, so I’ve got that five or ten-minute window of being able to step back and look at it. I took a similar approach to the mural as well, but with no experience or any time frame to go off it was really hard for me to tell what speed I was meant to go.
You mention the New Zealand scene as a whole, you are based here now because you are studying here in Christchurch, but you are from Auckland, right?
Yeah, born and raised.
So, growing up in Auckland, what influences were the strongest impact on you growing up? What got you involved? Auckland is so different from Christchurch, what were the biggest things you noticed coming down here?
Well, since coming down here, I’ve always looked at Christchurch as almost being in a time warp, almost ten or fifteen years behind. Not as far as skill goes, there’s some amazing artists down here, but the train tracks down here now look like how Auckland looked in the early 2000s, and that was the era that got me into graffiti, so I love the scene down here, it’s what we’ve now lost in Auckland because of the buff…
The Christchurch Rail Corridor, 2017 (Photo courtesy of Caelan Walsh)
It’s almost nostalgic for you… (laughs)
Yeah, and the creative energy, with so many blank walls, like in Auckland, every spot has been done to such a high level, that it is almost like: what’s the point? It’s already been ‘kinged’, someone’s already done something better, whether it’s a stomper, a tag, a piece, it’s already been done. Down here, even along the train tracks, you’ve got walls that have literally never been touched. Whatever you do on it, it’s going to be the best thing that’s ever been done on that wall…
There are two ways to look at both of those things as well, like you say, if somebody has already done something amazing, it’s either what’s the point, or there is a real drive to try and better it, or, when the are no precedents, you’ve got the freedom to do something without expectations, or you can get lazy and the level gets pulled down…
I guess from my point of view, being a bit older, I can really see opportunity down here. When I was younger in Auckland, I didn’t appreciate how lucky I was to be a part of that scene at that time, even in the early 2000s, I remember thinking, I wish I grew up in the 90s! Then when the buff hit in 2011 (when the Rugby World Cup was staged in New Zealand), it was like, oh crap, we were painting in the golden era of Auckland graffiti and we took it for granted! We should’ve been out doing pieces on all these spots instead of tags! But down here, it’s different for me, with that maturity that comes with age, and a desire to just do pieces, just being able to have that confidence in my style, I can quite confidently make a wall look better than it was…
Which again is a mature attitude, it is not what every writer is trying to do…
I do contradict myself quite a lot, and I still feel a lot of the different moods of graffiti. I think it’s important though, it can be very restrictive sticking to one set of views. But, generally speaking I like to paint for the act that I am making the wall look better than it was. It might not be publicly appreciated, or aesthetically pleasing to everyone, it’s still graffiti, but its better than the tagging that was on the wall before. This is also my general argument or, I guess, defence if I was to be approached by the public.
Studio works, including a benchtop and painted fridge, 2015 (Photo credit: Caelan Walsh)
For most people, it is the legal issue, the private property issue that is the most upsetting, and that is what leads them to say they don’t think graffiti is aesthetically pleasing, and that is sort highlighted by the way a buffed wall, with patches of mismatched paint, is clearly not an aesthetic improvement…
I find that very ironic, there are some very bad clean up jobs around that look worse than the tagging itself did. A particular example of this for me is when people tag using their fingers on a dirty wall or window, obviously it is still vandalism, but it is simply moving dirt around on a neglected surface that no one has taken the time to maintain. I would argue the wall was not aesthetically pleasing to begin with and the tagger simply pointed that out. With that said, I do hear the argument, even from writers, that they would be pissed off if their fence got tagged. But for me, I’m a pretty placid human being, if someone did paint my fence, I would go and paint it out and get on with my day, it’s not something that really stresses me out…
A fence is an object that defines territory, and as such it invites responses in some way, right? I’m not saying a fence deserves graffiti, but it does say: ‘this is my space, keep out!’ So, both because of that symbolic presence, as well as the physical form, something is likely to end up on them… it’s almost inevitable, even if it is not necessarily pleasing.
It comes back to that core emotion that people look for from graffiti, why people paint, we’re looking for that mental reaction. nothing beats being in the city at two or three in the morning, with no one else around, you’re walking down the middle of the street, and whatever you want to write on, whatever you want to climb, no one is stopping you, the city is yours, you own it…
[American graffiti historian] Roger Gastman has written that at its core, graffiti is about young people exploring the city, and as you say finding that freedom, those boundaries seem to vanish. On the flip side of that, how did you make the decision to take on commissioned opportunities? Were you influenced by what other people were doing? Did it germinate in Auckland, or was it more a case of the opportunities in post-quake Christchurch? Was it something you always thought you might do, or was it something you came around to?
Like I was saying before, I contradict myself a lot. I go between wanting to be a reclusive vandal and wanting to screw society up, to wanting to make society better, make it more beautiful, be a part of the wider community, go to events, talk with people. In Auckland, I guess, I got into the concept of tagging, not that I ever thought I would do it, but my older sister, who is in her late thirties now, a lot of her friends were ‘gangsta’ taggers, they don’t tag anymore, they have all moved on to actual serious crime, a lot of them are in jail now. But I was opened to that at a young age, and a lot of them were amazing graffiti artists, classic old school wildstyle painters. I can remember being eight years old, and trying to copy a drawing I had found, and I was just drawing heaps of arrows, and being like, how do you do this? That lasted maybe a couple of days, then you move on to the next little game or whatever. But then I revisited it as a teenager. One night I was staying at my mate’s place, and he was like alright, we’re going tagging. I was like, what’s that? I thought only people from the hood did that? Which is a racist view, really, that only poor neglected kids go out tagging. Why would a proper citizen, from a private school, who has the opportunity to be successful, start tagging? But ever since then, I caught the bug for it.
That’s what they have said about New York, that because hip hop was very Afrocentric, everyone assumed graffiti was the same, primarily the realm of poor black and Hispanic kids. But the reality was that graffiti was broader, it wasn’t as defined by your position in society as some of the other elements of hip hop…
It’s kind of funny, when you get more involved in the world, people still have that view, that it’s brown hood rats out tagging, when its just as likely to be middle-aged men with full-time jobs and families. Some of the most prolific taggers I knew in Auckland as kids are looking at owning their own home, or already own it, dealing with full-time job, a lot of them are sober of everything and they are still out every second night painting. I remember seeing an article years ago about Deus from Auckland, and the article was so racist, the actual headline was like: ‘Taggers are not just brown, poor and from South Auckland’, or something like that, and then it had a picture of Deus, an older white guy with missing teeth, quite an eccentric guy, dressed like he’s a bit homeless, and he’s one of New Zealand’s best artists, the complete opposite of the stereotype of what people think of graffiti, and he is at the pinnacle, especially of character work in New Zealand…
What are your next goals? You have talked about this cataloguing approach to pieces, and this increasing commissioned work, is that just a case of balancing the two, or does one become a focus?
I think that the commissioned work motivates me to do other things, because I don’t want to be known as a muralist. I enjoy painting murals, but as soon as I allow myself to be known as a muralist, or a ‘street artist’, that’s what really opens up my work to getting destroyed by younger taggers. So, there’s that certain aspect of keeping up my rep, whatever rep or street presence that may be. I’d like to let people know it’s cool, if you want to do it, take the opportunity if you can…
Some people decide it’s one or the other and go for it whole-heartedly, so actually deciding to do both and how you go about contending with both worlds is quite challenging…
I was having a discussion with Juse from Wellington, and we were saying it takes maybe like ten or fifteen years into your career before you can really know your work, which to some people sounds like a hell of a long time, but in art and graffiti, it’s really just the tip of the iceberg. If you look at people like Askew, he has been doing it since the early nineties, but its only just in the last like five years you can see that he has really found his purpose and found comfort in doing what he wants to do, and that’s more than twenty years of work that’s got him to that point…
The penny doesn’t necessarily drop quickly, right?
Yeah, like I remember starting out and being like, I’ve done graffiti for like two years, I’ll be good soon! My first piece was around the beginning of 2006, so I’ve been doing it for over ten years…
It’s a constant journey of self-discovery, right? You admitted earlier how there are always elements of your work you are unhappy with, and that is kind of what makes it such a long journey. It’s about your own standards, developing ideas, there is no end goal…
It’s bloody hard, you know? For anyone thinking of taking this up, it’s a big commitment, and you are never going to be satisfied. There’s always another spot, another piece, a different colour scheme, there’s always something. There are so many people in this scene, even since I got into graf, the scene is crazy big, and every country has a heap of cities and every city has suburbs. There are some amazing artists from all walks of life doing it, constantly pushing boundaries. I don’t think anyone could have imagined where graffiti would go…
It’s crazy, when you think about the roots in Philadelphia and New York, and now everywhere has its own scenes and micro-scenes; the hip hop tradition, punk, skateboarding, trash, anti-style, and then within all of those, you’ve got people doing different things, and with so many people…
It’s like all art, everything is influenced by your surroundings. We have the internet now, there’s obviously a lot of hate for it, in some ways it’s not as natural, but at the end of the day, it has just opened the doors of where you can take influence from, we’re no longer taking influence from our scene or street, we’re seeing every single suburb in the whole world…
The key thing is that if you are taking influence from somewhere, you need to know why something looks the way it does. If there is a cultural influence, there is a responsibility to understand that influence, and you also need to understand the relationship to space and place of where you are, and how it relates to what you want to do. There are a lot of things to acknowledge…
That’s exactly right, New Zealand has a great example of that; the tagging style ‘straights’, which is actually a very, very refined, rigid typography which takes a lot of discipline. It developed in the early nineties, from an old FDKNS member’s trip to Los Angeles I believe, and he came back with a lot of photographs and that developed this style and it’s since become a completely unique New Zealand style. Like you said, without understanding it, you could copy it and it would look like straights, but it’s not straights, it hasn’t got that discipline, and you need to understand why the letters look like that. Even now in Auckland, there is a West Auckland style of straights, an East Auckland style of straights, and you can’t just mix the two together, which I noticed in Wellington or Christchurch, where people just kind of copy the idea of straights, and there’s something missing from it or added to it. It makes it unique I guess, like Christchurch has its own form of straights, Wellington does too…
But they are not strictly the form that developed in Auckland, which brings its own specific influences…
Even just growing up in Auckland, if you showed me a set of straights, I’d be able to tell you what era it was done, because every year it is changing, or there was a particular style or letter that was pushed, and that was another thing, I guess, biting, copying was sort of expected with straights, if you were pushing it, you were expected to know what went before…
Perfecting it rather than pushing it because it is a specific visual language you are aiming to replicate. Shifting focus, tell me more about your field of study, because there is an interesting connection…
I’m doing a Batchelor of Criminal Justice, which is a Criminology degree essentially…
RCH container mural, March 2019 (Photo credit: Caelan Walsh)
Did your graffiti writing background influence your decision to go in that direction?
Yeah, not so much in the sense of actually writing graffiti, but the consequences of it. I’m not embarrassed to say I do have a criminal record, I’m very strong in my morals, if I think it is right, I’ll do it, even though it might be against the law. I think I’m pushing eight or nine times just on wilful damage charges. Just dealing with the court system, I’ve seen a lot of people who have been abused by the system, just because they have a lack of knowledge of how to deal with it. I’ve been lied to, I’ve been taken up the garden path, and told we won’t charge you, and then you admit to something and it’s like sweet, you’re under arrest. I don’t know about other countries, but in New Zealand they don’t teach your rights enough in school. I think every school should have some class about knowing your rights, because Police and anyone with authority can abuse their power…
I’ve always believed that any education programme should have some moral or ethical philosophy component. If we had more people who understood, not only their rights and how the justice system works, but who also have the ability to make up their mind about what is morally and ethically right, it would go a long way. So, when you finish, will you try and connect those worlds?
Obviously, I do have issues with a criminal record, which does impact where I can go for now, it will take time, but I will get where I want to go. I definitely want to end up doing some sort of social work. I’m already putting myself out there as someone willing to talk to people. I’ve gone to a lot of my friends’ court cases as support, because it’s a scary, intimidating thing going to court, even if it is just for drinking in public and its just a $200 fine, it’s still really intimidating. So, just having someone there, telling you it’s all good, that the worst that can happen is you might get home detention. They are thinking they might go to jail for two years, so it’s important to have someone who can say it is alright, don’t stress out and be confident with what you are doing. I’ve always found the worst punishment is not knowing, once you get charged, you got a couple of hundred hours of community service, O.K., I will knock that out, and move on. But that few months of: Am I going to get charged? Could I go to jail? Just getting stuck in the system is an incredibly scary thing…
Thanks man, it’s been really interesting, I look forward to seeing what comes next for you… Do you have any shout outs?
Yeah, shout out to Watch This Space obviously and Gap filler, also my boy Dove, the FOK and AOC crews and anyone in Christchurch that is doing their thing at the moment. And thanks to Cent for documenting the scene and helping out with some photos!
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