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.
When I arranged to sit down with Jacob Yikes, I had a feeling it could be a lengthy conversation; I have long been a fan of his work and here I was presented an opportunity to delve deeply into his approach to making art, his reflections on how his work and life are intertwined, and as I realised as soon as I stepped foot in his studio, the new directions signified by the impressively-scaled works he had been busy creating. I wasn’t wrong, over an hour after we started recording, it was time to catch a breath. We covered a lot of ground, and it was quickly apparent that our interview would be a bit of a monster, necessitating two parts. Here, in Part 2 of our interview, we jump straight back in and pick up where we left off…
You said before that you have felt that some of these works have been speaking to you in some way, not literally, but kind of telling you when the time is right to work on them and when it’s not right. The process of giving them time and stepping back, which you can’t do to the same degree with a wall, does it lead to frustration, or has it been satisfying being able to work in that way?
It has both. There’s definitely frustration, but I guess with the frustration, because I will start multiple works at a certain time, that time has to be right. I think that is when I feel that, not like that painting is talking to me, saying I have to paint it (laughs), but it’s more instinctively, I will make certain marks and certain gestures with whatever materials I’m using and then I get to point and it almost says ‘that’s enough, don’t touch me right now!’ (laughs) ‘You need to move on from that part!’ While you’re in this head space doing that stage of the works, basically, because the paintings are in stages, I can’t jump from stage to a different stage, from another painting, so I find that working on one or two can be helpful, because now working on a bigger scale, it’s a lot harder to set up five paintings. It’s a big space but it’s not big enough for that, I’ll smash things if that’s the case! it’s just not going to work, so you put that stage down and while I’m in that head space, I’ll move to the next one and then it will stop but there will be a while in between sometimes of me going back to that painting because the feeling is not right. Again, I think it comes down to how I’ve approached the works in the first place, of them being really personalised in terms of so many things, like it’s a real sort of expression, I guess, it kind of changes the look of the painting too, to an extent. There’s certain marks there for a reason, I’m kind of like putting those pieces back together, well not putting them back together, but putting them together when creating the other stages of the works. It’s probably my own little consciousness telling me: ‘Don’t work on that right now!’ I do work quite sporadically, one minute I’m doing something then the next minute I’m onto the next thing and it is kind of just how I’ve worked. It’s even how I’ve worked outdoors sometimes, I could be doing something and I’m not having it, so I leave. But then I’ll go and start the rest of the wall at like four in the afternoon, because I’ve found for me, if I try and force it, just too much negative energy comes out, and I’m not having it. The painting won’t go anywhere from that, so those first stages are super important in the studio works, not so much in the big works because there is a different process to painting them, but there is still that erratic quality, I can only work on them at this point in time, I think that’s more doable in the studio, for sure, but I haven’t really felt that I’ve gone too far with any of the works yet, so I’m just going on that initial instinct with them at this point…
Mixed media on paper, 2018
Because of the intense concentration involved in the finer details of your work, I assume it would be easier to know when the time is not the right for that approach, but with the more gestural stuff, which is such a strong element of these works, there’s a real sense of your physical exertion, and in many ways it must be really necessary to have that ability to know when to stop, because it must be so easy to be swept up in that…
Yep, absolutely man.
These works really have that dynamic sense of the movement of your body, but it’s so different from wall work, which will often, and this isn’t specifically about your work, but often it’s the scale and the size that reflects that, rather than the texture, or those kinds of elements, but these works really seem to reflect your physical presence, either above or in front of a work and engaging with that surface. Do you see the differences between the way that your mark making reflects your movements both on a wall and in the studio?
Yeah, well, it’s all very freestyle, even with the walls too. When I would work on a wall that was a little more expressive with marking making and how I used the line work and stuff, as opposed to the more structured ones that had that room element going on, it was all kind of whatever comes up was coming out, and I will deal with it once it’s on there, to an extent, because I can always visualise what I’m trying to achieve with it, but it’s never ever going to look like that, it’s just a blueprint in my head, to get to that point. I’ve taken movements from painting large works and graffiti and put them into how I achieve those first initial marks and sort of bits, and it’s pretty much the same process in terms of how I attack it, it’s just narrowed down in the studio. I don’t have to step back fifty metres and check out what have I done, I can just do it there. Also, it is completely different mediums, so, while I know the technique to get to there, the result is going to be different. And that result, to be honest, has come about by experimenting. I didn’t one day decide I’m going to start throwing it this way and start putting it here, having a wrecked, half dry brush and doing that with it (gestures), it pretty much was just messing around for a long time. And I mean a lot of the stuff in the past especially, I’ve just biffed, it’s never really come out, and there’s a reason for that too. At the time I’d be pissed off and in a foul mood because I’d just wasted a whole day and a whole bunch of stuff, you know, and then that comes back to me doing things at a time in my brain or whatever, in my day, that I shouldn’t be doing it. I’ve always kind of been a workaholic to an extent, not to the point where I would say I’ve neglected any of my responsibilities, but I would sacrifice sleep to do this, so I’m trying to use the time I get, and if it’s not happening , then I pay for it in the end, because I’ve spent that energy trying to do something I shouldn’t have even bothered doing. But that negative energy, not all the time, but sometimes, I’ve been able to channel that into that first process of making the gestural bits on the paper, building it basically. The paintings essentially have been built the way I look at them, I create a background or a distant sort of space for these images to sit in and go from there. They are always at stages, but I can always fix mistakes, by working with them, not necessarily ‘fixing’ them, but you know, and again it comes down to me thinking actually, that’s meant to be there for a reason, that might not be how I want it be right now, but I can actually work with that. It’s not all the time, but there have been times where I’ve been: ‘O.K., I’ve just messed that up, hang on I’ll put it away for now…’.
Mixed media on paper, 2018
In reference to the idea that your works often have these landscapes and environments in which structures and scenes are built, despite how tricky those settings are visually or spatially, they feel like real spaces, like something to inhabit, when you are painting them, do you place yor self in those settings?
I pretty much put myself in there, and I’m still really trying to figure out what they are. I think they are an element of my subconscious, kind of a dream world that I can escape to, and I can have full control over. There’s not that much in life that you can have full control over, so I find them an escape, and I think that’s where a kind of therapy does come into my work. When I get to these certain stages, the final bits in these works, its like, I built the set and now I’m creating everything else that ties that all together. While each one might have similar attributes, they are always different, there is always a different concept behind them too, that’s just part of my style. That probably works with that idea, there are certain images in my work that have become quite popular, but each one has its own feeling when I’m doing it, so I engulf myself in those worlds…
With this scale, viewers will be able to feel like they are being enveloped, which raises the logistics and potential approaches to exhibiting works of this size. Over the years you’ve exhibited in a number of different places; Am I Confused? was at the Art Box, which presented a unique space…
Yeah, it was.
Detail of the on-site work created as part of Yikes’ show Am I Confused? at the Art Box site on Madras Street, 2017
It was quite a tight space in terms of how people were able to filter through, with these works it feels like they need a very specific environment in which to be exhibited…
They do, they do man…
Is that a challenge in Christchurch?
It is really difficult. It’s probably the hardest part at the moment, because in the past I have always done the hard work to try and get these shows happening and I like that, but it is hard. Finding a space in Christchurch is hard for anything, so finding the right space for this sort of show is probably going to present a few difficulties, but it’s so necessary. I have to find the right space because for my works at the moment, I’m trying to really put people in a setting as such, whether it’s in my head or whatever, or it’s a setting controlled by me, because visually I know what I want to feel from these paintings and that’s going to be completely different from anyone else seeing them, but if I can also add in the elements of sound and lighting that I want to, then that’s going to help to build the story of them a little bit. It’s a deal breaker for me, and I’m not going to show them until I can get those elements happening. Because of my process of creating these works and how I approach them, it would be so stupid if I didn’t show them in the complete environment. I would just feel like I didn’t achieve what I set out to achieve, if I can’t put those final nails in…
The ideas that you are talking about; the control of the lighting, the sound, that’s a sign of the maturing practice of exhibiting. It’s not about just finding somewhere that will let you hang pictures, it’s about a whole experience of creating an environment for people to view your work and for you to have more control over how it is received. I feel like, for the growth of the urban art scene in Christchurch, there hasn’t really been that opportunity, or an environment that has allowed that in many ways, so that is, as you say, a big challenge, but it’s absolutely necessary for these works…
So much gets put in behind the scenes too, with getting the sponsorship, getting all the little things, all the logistics of it, so you’re putting in a lot of work just to show them, so for me, it makes sense to put in that work and just push a little bit more. With these works as well, the subject matter, it’s really real this time, not that it ever wasn’t, but it’s something that I haven’t really addressed ever, so I know I’ve amplified that, I’ve amplified the scale, but the scale thing for me is only going to really work with those other elements, with the sound, with the lighting, and that will ensure it all makes sense. It’s a specific thing that hasn’t even probably come to be in my own head yet, but I know where it has to go, and I know what has to happen with it. Like you said, it’s something that hasn’t been able to be done with these sorts of shows. I’m not being offered a mint set-up, a humongous space with all these things, and I’m not even asking for that. To be honest, I kind of like the control I get with not having to deal with that, I’m not saying I wouldn’t, but at this point, I’m trying to build this profile for myself which isn’t just about what I’ve done, but it needs to be different. So, for me to do that, I just have to literally make these ideas that have been pushing at me, come to be, and I think that the easiest way to do that is to have that control. My partner’s really good, we’ve worked together on these shows for a long time, she does a lot of the background stuff as well, because at the end of the day if I can focus on this stuff, it is better…
And it’s going to come out in the work…
Yeah, and we’ve learnt that from trial and error, just from having these shows. I’ve had some good shows and some bad shows, but at the end of the day you learn from each one.
Yikes at work in his studio, February 2018
In terms of your growing reputation, and to some extent the reputation of the Christchurch scene, have you investigated the potential to show these works outside of Christchurch?
I’m sort of in discussions at the moment with a few places up in Auckland, so it’s definitely been discussed. To be honest I was battling the idea of just doing the show in Auckland, not here, but I still I want to do both, I want to make it hard for myself! (Laughs) So I think whether it will be a travelling show or I will produce enough work that I feel I can even have two that are kind of co-existing with each other, I’m not sure on the final details yet, but moving them out of Christchurch is definitely something that I think needs to be done too. It’s a daunting thought because I would feel way more comfortable just going to another city painting a giant wall! It’s different exhibiting works, you have to get people to turn up to these shows, because they are not going to stumble across it by themselves all the time like a wall, and I guess I invest a lot more into these things than I do a wall…
There’s a finite timeframe too, a wall can be there for the next ten years…
Exactly.
You might only have the chance to display these works for three weeks…
It’s about getting the works there too, I’ve not made it easy for myself with the scale, but it’s definitely do-able, it’s just a matter of really making it happen. But it’s in the pipeline for sure, I think I need to make it happen this year. I would like to exhibit a little bit more regularly than I have been, it’s not through lack doing any of the work, it’s just through pretty much having to deal with everything else you have in life. It’s definitely going to happen and I’ve made those first initial relationships with a few places, it’s just about taking it from there, and it’s something I’m going to do.
Without sounding forceful (laughs), I think it has to happen, you deserve that exposure, you’ve put in so much hard work and developed such a unique and impressive style…
Absolutely, I am my own worst enemy. I know that I have put in work, and I always will. It’s not like I’m done now, I’m just going to do this now, it’s not that at all, but I know that I am physically here doing stuff, it’s just what I do. I know that there’s only so much I am going to achieve by not moving it around. I don’t want to just let it all unfold, I need to really push that too. I think for me, I always want to put my best foot forward, it’s a matter of what I take with me, what am I going to run with. It’s about not being so indecisive about what I want to take out of Christchurch. It’s a funny one, it’s definitely something I’ve felt for a while, and not even to the point that I’m going to move away and try and make it away from here, I’m not going to approach it like that, I don’t feel the need to have to move away from everything to just start trying to do things…
With Christchurch’s recognition as an urban art location, it also needs to mean artists can succeed here and thrive everywhere, it’s not about becoming a breeding ground for people then to move away, which is the typical kiwi, Christchurch story, right?
It doesn’t need to happen at all, that’s the thing, it really doesn’t. Even in just the past four years, just by producing works outdoors, it shows that it’s all about what you do to make this place what you want it to be. It’s funny, I mean I think people have their own opinions on how they want to approach it, but if everybody thinks they have to move away, what’s left? And that’s kind of what happened in Christchurch, I know a lot of people who just up and gapped it, and that was their own personal thing, which is cool, but that doesn’t mean nothing’s happening here, it’s all about how you perceive it really, and it’s all about what you’re looking for too.
It feels like there is a growing ecosystem locally, there is more diversity in terms of what people are doing, there are things here that can help make it all more entrenched. I guess as well, it’s also about continuing to attract people here as well, not just with opportunities to paint walls, like festivals offered, but if there’s spaces for people to come here and exhibit work, that can prove important too…
I think it’s important to not just all be floating in the same boat. It’s funny, I think oversaturation of one thing just kills it, and each festival, if that’s what’s happening, needs to bring its own thing to it, because at the end of the day, it is what people who were living here were doing, it’s just painting walls, it’s a do-able thing in Christchurch, it’s probably a lot easier than any other city, so you can’t just come and do that , you’ve got to bring something else to the table…
Exactly, I think that’s a really good point, in global terms as well, festivals pop up everywhere, every week, the biggest challenge and the most important thing now is to be unique, to have an thematic or ethical standpoint in some regard, you know, say ‘this is what this represents’, it’s not just about getting colour photos in the paper, it’s about achieving some other type of goal, which is really important.
Yeah man, I think so.
Thanks for taking the time to talk, I must say, I’m really looking forward to seeing you exhibit these works…
Yeah man, in the next couple of months, or sooner than that, I’ll be releasing dates, but yeah, it’s coming up soon. We are just kind of doing all the finer background work now, bringing it all together. When I get close to a new show I always like to go out and do some public work as well…
Do the PR act!
It’s just a way of saying ‘I’m not dead, I haven’t become a hermit just yet!’
Thanks Yikes!
Keep an eye and ear out for Yikes’ upcoming projects on Instagram and Facebook, as well as his website:
Jacob Yikes needs no introduction. His distinctive wall work has been a familiar element of Christchurch’s post-quake landscapes, turning walls into vistas filled with intricate, impossible architectural forms and characters who are in turn both playful and nightmarish. But while his large-scale murals might provide a pathway to ‘Planet Yikes’, his studio and exhibited work has shown an artistic evolution that delves even deeper into the themes at the heart of his expression. His works on paper and canvas show an artist coming into full bloom, imbued with personal symbolism and exploring a range of imagery, expressive physical processes, and experimental and expanding mediums and materials. We caught up in his studio, surrounded by a series of still-in-progress new works, evidence of his soon-to-be-exhibited recent output; large paintings pulsing with dynamic energy. And yet, fittingly, our conversation took place just before Yikes’ March trip to Dunedin to paint a large wall, a reminder of his ongoing occupation of public spaces. With the sun shining outside his studio, we discussed the transition between street and studio, his latest body of work and the process of their creation, and how life has a way of keeping you honest…
Yikes, the last few times we have caught up it has been while you were painting outdoors, so it’s a nice change to be here in your studio. Your practice has always had that inside/outside dichotomy, shifting between walls and canvas so to speak, but considering how much work you have put in painting outside over the last five years, it’s easy to assume you have slowed down somewhat on that front!
Yeah man, yeah… (laughs)
Has that been intentional, to allow you more time in the studio?
It’s a mixture of things really. I guess life catches up, you know, I’ve got two small children, so that’s definitely a factor, and they’re getting bigger, so that’s a thing, trying to fit that in. I think I’ve definitely felt a transition from wanting to produce works outside to being in my studio. Obviously, my studio is at my home, so I’ve got a very good set up now. I can kind of work quite erratically sometimes, so now when it is time to work, I can literally do it. Christchurch is pretty small, and I’ve done a lot of painting here, it’s not like I’m bored, but I am the type of person that has to keep doing new stuff. There’s definitely been a shift, and it’s not like, I’m never going to produce big works outside again, it’s nothing like that, it’s more like a certain tick that I need to itch! (Laughs) I feel like it’s a pretty natural progression as well, I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. I’m still here, I’ll still do whatever, it’s good…
Jacob Yikes’ Alice in Videoland mural, 2017-2018, Tuam Street. [Photo credit: Jade Cavalcante]It’s not that they are mutually exclusive, they are both part of what you do…
Yep, and they always have been, and they always feed off each other. There are only so many hours in a day, and in a week, so putting it all into one thing, it’s really hard to try and find time to do the other. In the past I’ve sacrificed a lot of sleep to get that happening and it works for a while and that’s cool, but it’s not physically possible for me, and you learn the hard way. I’ve learnt that, and having children they will let you know… (laughs)
For sure…
So, yeah, it’s just about what do I want to do? What do I see myself doing? At the moment, I think the studio-based stuff is really where I’m trying to focus. But again, I wouldn’t be doing any of this studio stuff if I hadn’t done certain things outdoors. They always feed off each other, and they always will.
And of course, painting walls is built into your profile as well, right? It affords certain opportunities and exposure…
Absolutely.
From a material point of view, both approaches obviously have different potentials, as well as different challenges. What do you see as the main differences, in terms of what you can do in the studio that you can’t do when you’re working in the streets?
There’s always a certain element of impact that I’m trying to achieve with both, and that’s achieved very differently outdoors than it is indoors in the studio. So, with my outdoor works, I was introducing bold colours with quite wild imagery, wild in the subject matter and often how it is executed, like with a lot going on. And then I brought that into the studio to a certain extent, and I’ve been able to, even though because the works I’m doing at the moment and in the past have been quite large, not massive, for canvas or paper work, or board whatever, they’ve been quite big but they’ve gone bigger, I can focus way more on a smaller scale but still get good impact as well, whereas outdoors, you can, but it is a lot of effort. It’s like, for those bigger works, I tend to just do them myself because of how I work, it’s completely different to painting pieces of graffiti with any of the boys, it’s a different process, it’s a different mind-state. In saying that, while a lot of my work outdoors has been very busy, it has also zoned in on certain areas and really worked them, but to be honest it’s a lot of time and effort and often you’re not really getting to the point of that’s what I was trying to do, so you have to kind of walk away from them, feeling like ‘I could’ve done that’, ‘I should’ve done that’, and that’s come from graffiti too, like every every piece you see, there’s something that you just wish you’d fixed, and you know that’s just part of it, but with the studio stuff, I can’t walk away from it, it’s not a wall in town, I’m living with it. In a bizarre way, it sort of speaks to me when I’m doing it, so that’s reinforced the idea that I can work really hard on these areas of the painting and achieve something where there is more impact.
Mixed media on paper, 2017. Exhibited in Face Value at Fiksate Gallery, November, 2017
When you are painting a wall and you stand back and take stock, there must be a strong awareness of the public nature of the process, simply because of the surroundings, whereas in the studio I imagine you can get really invested in producing work which is increasingly personal, you can be completely focused on it and enveloped by it…
Definitely, because as an artist there’s always, I mean, I can’t speak for every artist, but there’s an element of being self-conscious about what you are doing. When you produce public work, you do pretty much need to wear a hard skin, or you can retaliate, which is also something that I’ve probably done a lot in the past! (Laughs) But that’s just kind of who I am too, I don’t have lot of patience for dickheads in all formats (laughs), so it all just kind of comes with it. But with the studio stuff, it’s me, myself and I, and that can be good and it can be bad, because I can be my own worst enemy. I guess it’s that little voice just kind of kicking you in the ass, it’s good, but outdoors you’ve got your self to deal with and what other people think. But at the end of the day, I’m not really doing it for what other people think. I mean, yes, there’s this massive amount of positivity that’s come with public work, street art, whatever, but I feel like I get away with a lot (laughs), you know I’m not out to paint pretty pictures, I wouldn’t even say I’m trying to beautify things, it’s not the reason I go and do something, if that happens that’s great, but I know not everyone’s going to think that way…
It’s something that’s a problem with the adoption of urban art into the mainstream and it’s perhaps at odds with the roots and the intentions from which it has grown. Essentially urban art is about personal expression going public, it’s not solely, or even explicitly about acts of civic duty or beautification…
That’s right, it’s not community murals…
Yeah, they are a completely different thing. At the heart of it, urban art is about personal style, personal communication, and that’s often the hardest thing to explain. People celebrate and champion these beautiful things, whereas what graffiti and street art are really able to do is take art and put it in the streets, it can be beautiful, but sometimes it can be challenging, or visually unexpected…
Yeah.
Manchester Street, central city, 2016
And that means it is lot of things, and that diversity is really important in retaining relevancy and potency. We are surrounded by a number of your latest studio works, the scale of your studio pieces has been growing over the last few years, and these works are another step up in size…
They are. I think they have to be…
Yet for me, they are still clearly distinct from your wall works as well. Even though the works are getting larger, the things you can do in the studio are still really clear and obvious, from the detail, to the actual style of painting and the material approaches. Is that something you are wary of, that despite the size increasing, they are still going to be honest as studio works, rather than edging towards murals on paper?
Yeah I guess, when I think about it, before I really started focusing on studio stuff, I was painting big work, like not monstrous like it got, but a piece is a pretty large painting, so what I realised, was in a studio I can create completely different feelings with the same materials, but I can’t do that with walls, because it literally comes down to how they are sitting. With washes, and the metallics I add into the washes, which are the things I’ve concocted to make these paintings, they kind of have to be flat, they are always in a very wet stage until I spend the last few days finishing them. Also, like I was mentioning earlier, because I work on so many at a time as well, it works with my erratic personality too, it’s something I have to do, because if I don’t, I’ll ruin a painting. I’ve got all these ideas all going on at the same time, and if I put them all into the same painting, it’s just overkill. But when I paint on the street, I do that, I overkill, because it’s big. But you know this time around, I was more interested again in coming back to that impact, but thinking about how I approach it… In the past the works were big, but what’s going on inside of them was a big amount of work too, this time it’s the same sort of concept but I’ve slowed it down. There is, I think, more of a mystery to them, as opposed to zoning into these other works and getting lost in them, you can still do that with these, but there’s a bit more mystery…
Mixed media on paper, 2018
These works have a dynamic energy that breaks up the focus and sharpness of some of your previous works, there is still a suggestive sense of action going on, but it isn’t as definitive or finite as previous works might have been. That dynamism adds a personal quality, because they are reflections of your physical movements, which are of course relative to your personal state at the time you executed them…
Absolutely man, I think they are the most real paintings I’ve ever made. I’m not really the type of person in the past that would address a lot of things that are in these paintings, you know, and I haven’t, I’ve let it control my life, and I got really unwell with it, so I had to let it out. In a sense I’m kind of showing my demons in a way, but not in a way that is trying to make anyone concerned, it’s a healthy thing for me. It’s a way of me dealing with twenty something years of bullshit, so I really think that these works have their own story behind them. They are a body of work but each one is an individual reference to me. Being that they are a bigger scale too, I don’t know why, it just feels like I couldn’t get that same effect if I didn’t do them on this scale. Even with the paper ones, if they got any bigger it would’ve been too much and any smaller and it wouldn’t have worked. For a while I went through a period, for a good few months, where I was not able to paint anything, to draw anything, I literally reclused and stopped, and then kind of came out of that and this is what came from that. I guess too, there is a very different process to how I’ve worked in the past, where I would just go, go, go, go, non-stop, no sleep, I just went for it. There was a lot of work that came out of it, but a lot of it, man, I was in autopilot for a lot of it. I look at them and I know what they’re about, what’s going on, but I’m like, when did this even happen? But with these ones, they are all so much more relevant and they are all so much more decisive too. There’s no work where I’m like, that one probably shouldn’t be like that. Now there’s a whole different process…
Do you think that’s a combination of the timing being right in terms of what you are expressing, but also of how you are able to express it, through your actual practice? In a way, nothing is wasted if it has led you to a certain point, right?
Definitely.
Do you feel that these works represent an arrival point at how you are able to express these ideas visually?
I kind of have the mind set that things happen for a reason, that you experience things for a reason, like whether you know that when it’s happening, or you know it later on down the line. But I definitely think I’ve always found myself at the right place at the right time, especially with how my career has started to shape itself. At the same time, it hasn’t all been roses, you know, there has been a lot of bullshit as well. But if there wasn’t that bullshit, there wouldn’t be any success. I think it gives me ammunition to actually paint these works like I do. It’s how I process these things, I have certain kind of conclusions with my life and predominantly my art, because my life is my art and that is probably more apparent in these works than I think it ever has been. Again, the subject matter is a more refined me, rather than processes made by me or just stuff. Past shows have talked about stuff, they have been derived from me, but they’ve never really been about me, so it’s sort of narrowed in, and I guess that’s happening now because that’s what was meant to happen. To be honest, painting them is a way for me to try to figure a lot of that out, you know; why? why everything? So, the two work pretty well together, but I think you know, that’s the thing with progression, too, with anything you’ve got to take whatever comes, because you won’t progress. You can’t have it all good and progress to something better, without downfall, because there is no balance…
Yikes in his studio, 2018
That’s an important skill, the ability to understand what is happening, and to figure out that path. If your work is the same for twenty years, then something is probably going wrong under the surface…
Good luck to you, if that’s what you are up to! Because I think as humans, you all deal with things in different ways, based on personality, based on past experiences, based on how you’ve been brought up, based on however. Maybe it’s part of getting older and having kids, but I find myself having to really create my own path, you know, what I mean is, it’s a hard thing, because as an artist it’s quite difficult to live in this day and age, there’s a lot of pressures, financially, whatever, but…
Particularly somewhere the size of Christchurch…
That’s it man, it’s not massive and you know, I think I’ve always known that I don’t want to follow suit, it’s just not me. I just can’t do it. I think too, to be honest, that’s where the studio stuff has become more dominant, because this is truly where I’m supposed to be too. Before I was into doing graffiti or before I was painting large scale works, I was always into drawing, always into making art, so it’s like literally from an early age, it’s kind of my been my forte. But you know, it’s still a battle to make that an everyday thing, to make that a reality, it’s still really difficult. So I think taking a step back from doing walls puts a bit of pressure on things like that, because at the end of the day, painting large scale works is how I make my living, how I’ve made my living, selling paintings and doing commission works as well, it all fits in, but predominantly, the walls like I have always said, they are advertising for me as an artist, so it’s difficult to really put one to a side and then focus on one other thing because at the end of the day I’ve got bills!
Yeah, but that challenge is important to take on as well, right?
Yeah, and again it comes back to the fact that there is nothing to do but roll with it. I can create my path, and I know where I want to go, I don’t know where I’m going to end up, but I know what way I want to go…
Which is as important as anything right? People talk about it’s not the destination, it’s the journey…
Absolutely, because I’m kind of too afraid to arrive at a destination! (Laughs) I’m in no hurry to get there! And I think when you get there, if you get there, good and bad creates where you arrive, it’s all about how you deal with it in that process, and I think for me as an artist, the best way is to just literally keep doing what I feel is best. I have to get it out, because if it’s not true to me, at that point, whatever comes after doesn’t matter because I’ve put something out that’s not fully me, and that’s the battle of being an artist too, you want to produce what you feel is right and where you want to go, but at the same time, you have to make money and things too…
It’s a reality…
Yeah, it’s that reality. But again, in the past I’ve sacrificed sleep to do both, so it’s definitely all learning, every painting I do I learn something from it.
Saturday, December 2nd, saw the official opening of the new ‘Youth Space’ in the central city’s East Frame. The space, a project facilitated by GapFiller, Ōtakāro and Fletcher Living, combines a basketball court and a rock climbing area, with perhaps the most forward-thinking element: an evolving art space that allows artists to freely paint in public without fear of repercussion. This is a first for the city, a step further than those spaces where painting is tolerated or ignored, but not technically allowed (those peripheral spaces that have long served graffiti and street art’s development, such as alleyways and train tracks). This is an innovative move that has been pushed for a long time by those from the cultures, but has too often fallen on deaf authoritarian ears.
The space contains eight giant spray cans which have become literal objects for art. The eight cans are physically split in two groups, with three cans intended for more established artists to produce long term works that will be refreshed sporadically, and five serving as ‘free-for-all’ surfaces, as evolving canvasses. They will operate on a first come, first served basis, and as artist Wongi ‘Freak’ Wilson has noted, people should be prepared to document their work, as any contribution may last a week, a day, or a minute, as is the nature of such a space, and of course, is an undeniable aspect of guerrilla street practices anyway. On the opening day Wilson, Ikarus and Jacob Yikes, from Christchurch’s famed DTR crew, painted the three ‘permanent’ cans, while local artists Beksi, Dove, Bore, Smeagol and Drows were given the opportunity to give the five other cans their first layer.
The ‘permanent’ cans with works in progress by Jacob Yikes, Wongi ‘Freak’ Wilson and Ikarus
Notably, the surfaces on which people are invited to paint are part of the lineage of the city’s ongoing love affair with urban art: the giant spray cans were fabricated as part of Oi YOU’s Spectrum shows, and if they are aware of history, the city’s youth can now paint on surfaces to which artists such as Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada, Sofles, Berst, Seth Globepainter, Tilt, Flox and many more are historically connected, even if no longer visible. That these objects are in proud place in the inner-city streets is testament to a shifting opinion around the art with which they have an unavoidable kinship. It is also important to note that the cans are not buildings, they are specifically in place as surfaces for art and that is both unique and partly why the concept works; their decoration is not an affront to private ownership, not even by association.
Of course, such a concept is not without risk, and it should be admitted, it will not prove a cure-all for vandalism (which is not the explicit goal of the space, but will surely be read as such by some). Vandalism, which is not a by-word for graffiti, and exists without a pen or a can of paint, is driven by a desire to fracture physically and symbolically, and a permissioned space will not attract those who are interested purely in transgression. But it will importantly provide an opportunity for artists to develop, to experiment, and to grow and that is no small thing. Indeed, the potential this space provides should be celebrated as a significant shift in thinking around these artistic cultures. Also, it should not be expected to rival the sheer scale and cohesive appearance of the grand murals dotted around the city (and notably nearby). The space will instead produce an aesthetic more akin to urban art’s natural state, a visual quality that many find infinitely fascinating, created in layers over time and representative of thousands of voices, but admittedly, others find harder to comprehend. This is always at the heart of such an undertaking, the various positions and desires of contributing factions will be at odds, a microcosm of the city at large.
The future of this innovative approach will of course be in some way determined by outcomes authorities are interested in, regardless of whether such desires are realistic. But with planned workshops and other events, it will become an important and fascinating location for the city’s ever-evolving graffiti and street art cultures, an important step in the city’s creative evolution, potentially unearthing new stars and providing a continuing reminder of the potential found in opportunity.
