Stephen Smith Lloyd is the mastermind behind the controls at the Neasden Control Centre (www.neasdencontrolcentre.com) a place hidden in an unknown location, not unlike our very own secret submarine hidout. Neasden Control Centre is also a place where intriguing visuals and installations come from. Here’s a chat with the ultimate responsible for it all.
First of all: Why, where, how… did you become an artist?
It is hard to recall when that decision was made, if ever. As far as I can remember this was the only thing I wanted to or could do, a love of drawing and making things, that and not grinding down the 9-5 stone smooth.
You’ve published 3 books already and there is no text in them about you or your work. Also, in one interview I’ve been able to find you ask the interviewer not to ask about influences and a bunch of other subjects. Like many other artists, are you the kind that hate to talk about your work because you expect everything it has to say to say it for itself?
I don’t expect anything or to inform an opinion through words about my work, that’s why you won’t find any text in the NCC books. Visuals have refractions deep inside the core. I ‘m therefore not that keen telling people what to think as they are quite capable of doing it themselves. I’ve met a few walking talking art critics along the way though.
Then I guess you don’t you like to cultivate the star system approach to your PR and marketing strategy ;) ?
Nope.
It seems like much of your personal visual universe has much to do with imagery from the second half of the 20th century. For instance, you have images on your website about a project called The sixties and although it’s clearly composed of sixties iconography it doesn’t look too different from the rest of your work. Are you a nostalgic… maybe of times you didn’t even experience yourself?
This example you refer to is client work. Things look better with time. I’m motivated to turn soil on the past. Being able to finger pick and dig through a decades output with some kind of eye piece, shaped like a revolving discerning eye in soft focus. I admire the work of previous generations, a fondness for the handmade, especially fantastical utopian dreamland soaked with acid drowned in melodic fuzz guitar deleted concept album.
One thing that I find probably one of the most admirable of your work is the way you mix the analogic with the digital making it all part of a same proposal and in a similar way how you can do projects both more design-oriented and personal work making all looking part of a same discourse too. Do you see all your work part of one single body of work and you do it intentionally or does it just happens naturally?
It’s all part of the same soup to me. I didn’t define the boundaries so I don’t have to stick to them, if there were any rules anyway? it’s good to mix things up, play, experiment with different materials and ways of working and that’s what keeps it interesting. The body of work … It happens organically but pushing current ways of working happens most of the time through both client and commercial work . I take on only a few clients per year and try to balance out the work overall: exhibitions with film with print / installations etc… and always to try and keep things fresh.
Going back to the analog vs. digital I would say that the overall feel of your art tends over the first, with the digital being a mere tool but at the same time I don’t think your work would be the same if you had been born 30 years ago when all the technology we have nowadays didn’t exist (other factors to the time period difference aside). Would you agree on this?
Hhhmmm the analog vs digital question. But for me it’s just about using the tools available to you at that time in order to create. To forget the analog / digital as this never comes into the equation. Coming back to your point though maybe the work would look similar 30 years ago (who knows) then it was commonplace to use tons of media: blueprint copiers, different letrasets, photocopies, pmt machines, letter press, screen print… I could go on…and everything has already been done before (in this or a previous life).
And now back to the design vs. art, one question is maybe obvious: How do you manage to do both things: the commercial and the “purely artistic” stuff?
It just tends to work out that way: pretty naturally. The rest of the time is split between shows and producing other work; prints, personal work, walking the preverbal dog…
Doesn’t the clients you do design work for condition your creativity to obtain whatever communication or otherwise goals they have? Do you find this a challenge or a nuisance?
No, I’m lucky that I do many different things. The briefs are usually pretty open and flexible, even vague sometimes. Moreover, people expect something new, work of an experimental nature.
Maybe your work is very well known and precisely what clients ask you to do is the same type of art they see in your personal work. Is this the case and maybe that’s precisely the nuisance?
It’s good to surprise people to keeps things looking forward.
I would like you tell us about your creative process and particularly how’s the balance between the process and the result. Anything is good as long as it takes you to the desired objective or precisely is the process what makes it worthwhile and the result is just an expression of that process? Can you elaborate on this, please?
Most things start in the sketchbook or on paper somewhere, these are worked on and built up, photocopied, stood on and digested a while until the point when it needs to be executed into something else or dies. This process can be very quick or take a lot longer. I really don’t have an usual daily working practice but like the floor to paint, working at night and early morning. I think you have your own kind of temperature barometer inside that tells when something is right or finished or not (it’s sometimes hard not to overcook a good dish) a directional way map if you like or GPS in the inner zone. In the studio things may get left aside and re-appear when your not looking or trying to find something else covered in dust. Disorder ugly beautiful The mighty Thelonius Monk was right.
There’s a generation of artists worldwide that I think that share at least a somehow similar attitude and sometimes some aesthetics coordinates. Some of them come from the street art, some other, like yourself, are making the line between a designer and an artist very blurry… what do you think you share with other artists from that same “scene”?
For me it’s always for a DIY attitude. Creating something different and new whilst being part of something larger is part of it by nature, humor, connecting, hunger, fighting for what you believe in, staying clear of the wider system.
There’s a question that intrigues me from all artists in general and wanted to ask you about: How much of your personal visual universe comes from your childhood? Is the kid inside of you a big percentage of who you are as an artist?
Probably more than I think. I used to get these dreams in black and white, all animated and extremely fast adventure moving images, almost manga style but different, they came from who knows where one day. As a kid I was always pretty much into drawing, space suits, constructing, the usual stuff but always in a daydreamer mode.
What have you been working on recently?
A music video for Cineplexx, Helium cowboy 5year show and developing new work for a forthcoming solo show at the Calm and Punk gallery Tokyo later in the year plus other stuff to be realized over the next few months.
And any interesting project coming up that you can tell us about?
To free up headspace and confusion between NCC print, motion and other projects from my own installation / exhibition artworks. I ll be pushing all my personal work through www.stephensmithlloyd.com from now on.
Some project you would love to do but didn’t have the chance or nobody has asked you to do yet?
A freestyle sound vision festival traveling geo disc tent on wheels
Can you turn us into some artists or something interesting that we should know about?
If I start this list I’ll miss people out… too much good stuff at the moment. Mebike in Amsterdam in september is looking good.
It’s been a while since we first met the people from Rojo® magazine. And since them they’ve become not just a magazine but a publishing company, a very complete website, even a web TV and they just don’t seem to have enough with all those things. About a year ago they told me they were planning on coordinating a network of “alternative” art spaces so I asked them to keep us updated. Now the ROJO® art network is a quite a reality with many of the most interesting art spaces worldwide so when they asked us if Subaquatica would be interested in joining, we had to accept. We’ll keep you all updated on what this means in practical terms but rest assured there will be coordinated projects between the different spaces and new things going on that would only be possible because of this association. For now take a look at their website for more information on the ROJO® art network:
Fefe Talavera ( www.fefetalavera.blogspot.com y www.flickr.com/photos/fefe_talavera) is an artist that has been primaruly active these past years in the Brazillian city of São Paulo. She shares that city with a whole generation of young artists that have been getting a very important international recognition lately. Fefe also shares with them a not always so common stylistic freedom and a powerful primary energy but that’s possibly with similitudes end. She has created a world full of montsers all of her own, a world of beings that go along in her trips to her darker inner self and also in her many real world travels making her work known.
First of all when, where, how and why you started to do work in the streets?
I started painting in the streets because I’ve always been interested in everything that happens “underground”, everything out of the ordinary. Painting in the street gives me the opportunity and the freedom of space to paint big things and pass on what I’m feeling to all the classes of people. I started painting with Calma and Asa. We had a crew (Faca), but I felt it was better to start a way of my own so i did.
Actions in the street require a very special dedication and a certain level of sacrifice. You also travel a lot to events and festivals all over the place and on top of all that you are a music artist. How do you manage all those activities?
What you need the most is a balance with everything (which I don’t have much of but keep looking for it). And for all professions you need dedication. Being an artist you have the opportunity of being completely free and being free you can be anything. The musical and the visual art works are like brothers. What you need the most is having a lot of energy and turn it into something fun and make the most of every single second the life gives you and lever let the “stardom” get to your head. In a given moment everyone seems to treat you as if everything you do is perfect and nobody is better than anyone else, you cannot be confused about this. There has to be a certain type of dedication to painting and music and if you don’t believe in yourself you just don’t have that kind of dedication.
And, with these different activities, do you feel like different artists or you assume a different role in every case?
With the painting I do monsters that represent my anger, fears, dreams… With music I speak about the shitty government in my country, about the people that can suck out your energy and make money with your creativity. I’m a very passional person and I put a lot of intensity in everything I do, good of bad. That’s why my music name is “Lil Monsta“. Fefe is because in Brazil is very common to use short names with the first letters, such as Mari for Mariana, Caca for Camila or Fefe for Fernanda.
Like you just mentioned your paintings consists primarly of monsters. What kind of reaction do you expect people to have in front of your monsters? Are they as dangerous as they appear?
Hahaha, I don’t expect anything from viewers, only that they understand some of what I’m trying to pass on, but if people don’t get it, that’s alright. I do it more for myself rather than for other people. A viewer always expects something new and is critical with what one does or what one is all the time. The secret lies in not worrying much with the viewer and worry with self-satisfaction instead. My monsters are not bad or dangerous and don’t really intend to portray anything. They are just part of my negative ego.
During a lot of time you have been doing these monsters but with cut out letters but it seems like not anymore. How has been that evolution to where you are at right now?
Doing monsters with letters was cool for a while because it was something nobody had done before. And I’ve always felt admiration for typography and wanted something else with letters rather than words. Because that’s the way I see them: Letters from words, sentences, poems… and also drawings. People see letters as a serious thing and I think we need to look at them with the eyes of children, playing with them. With time I sensed that people like this a lot and the letter-made monsters became too popular, too easy so I grew tired of doing them because this became a problem for me. Cutting letters out became hell and I ended up spending more time cutting them rather than actually creating something with them. That’s when I started doing what I really like which is painting so I went on a search for my roots and found something that’s very important for my life and style: The combination of my two cultures: native Mexican and native Brazilian.
Wall by Fefe Talavera and Remed
You come from São Paulo where a lot of street artists are coming out with a great success. What do you think happens in this city to contain so much talent and have some many people from other places like what it’s done there?
The city of São Paulo is a very ugly and sick city. For artists the only way to go is showing what’s beautiful inside of them and one thing this city has that’s very interesting is its walls, big and good to express yourself. At least we still have the chance to express ourselves in the streets, although they might be saying that this is ilegal. What I like about Brazilian artists is that they found their own personality. For a long time you didn’t have people from other countries paying attention to Brazilian art and artists were too much into the whole mainstream gallery scene. Now it looks as if the Graffiti is in and that opened the doors to many underground artists, also with the Internet that’s so much more.
Looking beyond São Paulo there’s also a lot of people from more or less a same generation from many places that have in common the art in the streets factor. Its a very diverse scene but with a somehow shared attitude. How do you see yourself inside this world? What do you find when you travel around the world and what surprises you the most?
I don’t like having to position or define myself in any particular place or scene. When one’s an artist, that’s what it is. I don’t see the need to name it or belong to any crew. Everyone looks for its place and the people you indentify yourself with but… if I like someone, I’ll become his friend and if that person doesn’t do the same thing as I do that won’t prevent us from becoming friends. Everyone has its own pace, culture, flow… and that’s what I like the most about traveling: Getting to know as much as I can every city. I love music and art and people that’s open to know me. What I’m more surprised about the different artists I meet is how they are all, each in its own way, very sensible and because of that there’s a very common way of communication between us.
Are you starting to have presence and sell your work in art galleries?
I studied fine arts but, you know what? I’ve learnt far more in the street than in schools, a thousand times more. And showing in galleries it’s good but you have to accept certain things that are not as nice. There’s much lie in that world, a world that’s very different from the world of the streets: There are limits, arrogance, intolerance… but at the end you sell your work. Each one has to choose what he wants.
So what’s your experience in that world?
The best experience is getting to know people and places that you previously didn’t know. Galleries, they are very similar. What’s important is not selling in galleries but loving what you do. Artists nowadays are hungry for recognition, wanting to be famous but the truth is that this is worth nothing, it’s very meaningless. Each one has to find the best way to be known and respected because of your art, nothing else.
What have you been up to lately??
I sing, paint, dance and travel.
Any plans for the future that you want to tell us about?
There’s a project still undefined to show in Mexico DF with Doze again. And Japan next year for singing.
Fefe Talavera and Doze Green
What project you would like to be offered to do and still didn’t have?
Everything that has to do with art and music is always welcome. I’ve accomplished pretty much everything I’ve wanted in my life. It’s all a question of determination and not depending on nobody else to get what you want. It’s both simple and difficult at the same time.
Any artists you would want to recomend?
There are a lot of talented artists I know. I would recomend Remed with a very characteristic and personal work, his pieces are very graphical and his typography is unbelievable… everything very well executed and thought. Raquel Chembri, is a great artist from Belo Horizonte. I believe very much in her art. She’s very young and talented. Ciro, Ramon Martins, Debens, Zosen, Eltono, 3ttman, Nano4814, Mister, Speto, Flip, Guillermo Zoria, Titi Freak, Zezao, Seleka, Turbo, Jagdish, Kafre. And my new master of painting, Doze Green. His work is incredibly stunning. It has a force that comes through your eyes, passes your heart goes down to your stomach to be digested and comes out like a fart.
Olaf Ladousse (www.olafladousse.com) has been a persistent reference in the creative subworld of Madrid since long before Subaquatica started trying to be a window open to that scene of creative people below the surface. And precisely perseverance is one of Olafs trademarks along with talent and a restless spirit. That spirit has made him embark in to many different initiatives to mention. Among them a comic book zine that he’s been publishing for over 15 years or the “El cartel” project (www.elcartel.es) where Olaf, along 3 other illustrators design and print a poster that they paste around downtown Madrid just for the sake of it. Here’s the interview with this French living in Malasaña (a neighbourhood traditional epicenter of Madrid alternative scene).
First a question we ask everyone that we interview here: When, why, how and where did you start to consider yourself as an artist and designer?
Mi designer status is easy to define: It comes from graduating in the Higher National School for Industrial Creation “Les Ateliers” in Paris in 1992. Later, when I understood that a big ego wasn’t necessarily something negative, I assumed my artist status.
And when did you first felt the need to take it to the streets?
In fact that’s where I started. As a teenager I was in a crew of “stencilers” in my school. It was the 80s and I was living in the suburbs of Paris and it was time to emulate activist artists such as Blek, Kriki or Bergu. I would cut the stencils, my friends got the spraycans and we covered the high school in our last year without being caught. I got into the design school with a portfolio entirely consisting of stencil illustrations. Before hitting the streets the walls of my bedroom became too small and the parking lots, the commuter train, the towers in my neighbourhood of La Défense were desperately asking for some color. Later I got my driver’s license and started rescuing old 50’s fridges with my mother’s car that I took when she was sleeping. I would discard the compressor, empty the fridges interiors and paint the outside. It was the opposite process: Taking elements from the streets and painting them at home. The “El cartel” came much later already after moving to Madrid. I had published the Street issue of my “¡Qué Suerte!” zine that was in fact a poster that I would paste on top of a extreme right pamphlet-poster: La Voz De España . Mutis thought that it was a good idea and we started it with other 2 illustrators. That’s how “El cartel” started with the two of us, César Fernández Arias and Eneko; later with Jaques Le Biscuit too.
Your creative activity is an example of multitasking, almost like a renaissance man. You are, besides a professional illustrator, a comic book artist and publisher, maker of sound machines , street and linoneum artist and on top of that musician with two different bands. Is all this activity part of a same discourse or is it just the person what all this have in common?
¡Viva el Renacimiento! It’s fun trying different mediums to see what comes out of it.The person behind it is the same but the message gets adapted to the technique. For instance, the comic pages I do for the Mondo Brutto magazine are aimed at their lovers of the bizarre readers; what I do for “El Cartel” is more universal because the readers are more varied and casual and there’s a finger-pointing attitude. With music I don’t give a damn if people get it. I just make some noise and enjoy playing with people I feel comfortable with. The quality of the music and the genre is for the hypothetical listener-live show goer-buyer of our records to decide. I do have recurring obsessions that I tend to reflect in all my graphic work such as being a personal enemy of God in all its religious variants and also an enemy of the compromising of freedom speech in favor of comfort and security.
And between your personal work and your commercial work, is there a clear difference?
Of course!. If you accept a project you have to accommodate to what the client wants. But in your artistic work you also have the insidious temptation of trying to please the buyer which is not as different after all. I suspect that there are artists that show their work to sell it but I don’t have many ocassions to confront with that dilemma. Most of my work is commissioned personally by Olaf Ladousse to the bohemian situationist I pretend to be.
And how do you deal with clients trying to have you repeat something you’ve done before and you don’t feel like doing again?
It’s part of the job defending your proposals in front of your client if you are lucky enough to find one. Often work comes through an agency and it’s them that deal with the final client. It’s difficult to avoid dealing with them and you never know how are they going to defend your work in front of their client so the agency is the client. Sometimes I suspect they ask me for a first sketch to present it to their client as a radical proposal to get away with the less extrem proposal they really expect to get approved. That’s why I always try to set a price for any sketch and then a price if the projects gets approved. And obviously they know your work and that’s why they call you so it’s very difficult to get away with something very different unless they just call you because you name is big and in that case the signature is more important than the work but I’m not there yet.
And back to the less lucrative activities, besides art in the streets or music, there is the publishing of the “¡Qué suerte!” zine that you’ve been doing since 1992. Well, how come you still find time and motivation to chase artists from all over the world for their contributions, take the zine to the shops, get paid by them…? How do you see the role of “¡Qué suerte!” in the comic book world of today dominated by manga? It was quite alternative back them and now it seems like it’s even more…
“¡Qué suerte!” is quite a nice and satisfaying graphic adventure. It started when I was showing my design portfolio around agencies and I met many good illustrators so I decided to invited them to collaborate in a zine. The first issue was the Egg issue. If it worked I would commit to do the Chicken issue and if it didn’t the Omelette issue. People seemed to like it so we went for the Chicken. More illustrators came aboard, professionals or novice, musicians and kids. Whenever I would find artists I liked in another zine I would invite them. Most of them would accept. The quality of the zine depends on the contributors and I merely invite them and publish it. I publish everyone that I contact and accepts. Thanks to the zine I’ve known a few really good artists and with some of them I’ve been in touch by regular mail for years without seeing their face. It’s like Myspace without a computer and with stamps. As long as there’s people willing to draw for “¡Qué suerte!” it will continue. I publish 500 xeroed copies of every issue and put a lot of care into printing the cover with linoleum. It’s something I can afford doing once a year. It costs as much as publishing a 7″ single. Getting paid from the shops and having a decent distribution is much more complicated and a part of the job I don’t put much effort into. It might seem like a very alternative zine in Spain but there are similar things around the world.
You are a publisher but also a comic book author and in the process of creating a comic book there’s the visual and the storytelling aspects. What kind lof stories do you feel the need to tell? Is that’s narrative side of your work present in your other activities?
I’m a mercenary of the comic book. I only do comic books on a commissioned basis. There’re no unpublished pages and I always need someone to suggest a theme so I don’t have to worry too much about coming up with an idea. Every genre has it’s typical-topical script whether it’s a superhero or manga comic book. All the stories tell basically the same. The character changes and maybe the narrative structure but the basic resources are always the same. My typical script is that of a character that walks down the street, bumps into something, falls, stands up again in anger and then falls again and dies. I’m not into happy endings. If it’s for the Mondo Brutto magazine I fill it with Brutesch verbal diarrhoea and if it’s for “¡Qué suerte!” it remains silent. With music is the same. The members of the band are the character in the story and we usually tell the same story with the three basic chords the devil taught to Robert Johnson in the crossroad.
Besides all those activities, do you keep a purely personal line of studio work? Do yo show your work in galleries on a regular basis?
I show my linoleum prints in the collective shows where they ask me to participate. These are easy to ship by mail and the look nice hanged with a nail. I enjoy exhibiting my doorags (music instruments done disassembling electronic toys) but it’s much more difficult to find galleries interested in scheduling a sonic show. The “El Cartel” poster is exhibited in the street where it belongs. I like it very much working with neon signs but I’ve only done a couple so far. It’s a discipline I’m fascinated with because it mixes technology, drawing, sculpture, light and the streets. I’m abducted by the drugstores neon signs. Unfortunately these are expensive to produce so I can only make them when commissioned to. Once I’m famous I’ll blind you all with my neons.
By the way you work with linoleum or do the doorags it seems like you like doing things the complicated way. I have 3 questions related to this.
First one: How much of an artisan and how much of an artist is there in you?
I’m an artisan first and an artist later. My training is technical and I learnt to use industrial machinery before I got into drawing and I started drawing because of technical blueprints. I’m not such a good drawer but I’m quite skillful with my hands anf I try to have that compensate my lesser plastic hability. I think I’m better at doing objects than drawings.
And the second one is about the process: Is it more important than the result? Is it impulsive or rational?
In general I’m more concerned with the intention rather than with the final result. That’s why I’m fascinated with the Art Brut where the artists create by pure need and impulse. Once finished the art is over and the contemplative aspect of it is the viewers business, not the artists.
And at last the third one: Do you try to make a stand of the analog versus the technological or it’s just a question of how you’ve become used to work?
I try not to pay much attention to the latest in technology. There is too much marketing and interests involved in having us use the latest Photoshop filter, for instance. I see why you think I’m into the analog because of my production techniques but I disagree. If you take a look at the doorags I make they are made of recycled parts because it’s easier and cheaperm and it’s more fun to give them a new identity but inside they use the latest in massively produced microchips made in China. And franky, a valves amp and a vinyl record sound so much better than a mp3 player…
And a few short questions:
What have you been doing lately?
I’ve been practicing japanese for the Japanese tour of my band LCCD: Los Caballos De Dusseldorf (www.myspace.com/lcdd), pasting posters around Madrid and preparing the upcoming Molecule issue of “¡Qué suerte!”.
Any plans for the future you want to tell us about?
This year I want to do a new neon sign, publish a new version of the “Coser y Cantar” manual (for making your own doorags) with more tricks, continue touring abroad, find a good record label for the second LCDD album and also record with Las Solex. If all this happens in 2008 it will mean I’ve worked enough this year.
What project you’ve never been asked to do and would love to?
More neon signs, more travelling, another book as nice as that “Equilicuá” that Le Dernier Cri (www.lederniercri.org) published but unfortunately there aren’t many good publishers around here.
Still unknown to us, he came by Subaquatica to offer some linoleum prints he had done. Since them we have been following his truly amazing and definitely personal work from the distance and through the Internet. Troy Lovegates, aka Other (www.flickr.com/photos/other) is the guest artist this month and this is his interview.
First of all when, where, how and why you started to do work in the streets?
I statred painting on the streets in around 89 or 88 more to find the other people that were doing stuff in Toronto than anything. I didn’t understand how the tags and Graffiti just showed up at night without anyone seeing it. I wondered who it was so I started myself to find out.
You do that kind of work “outside” and I know you do linoleum prints and you do studio work from what I’ve seen in your flickr page. Do you feel that it’s all part of a same discourse or do you keep different approaches in concept and style when doing these different activities?
Work outside is how I found out about art. A lot of the time I find indoors work a bit pretentious and limited to an audience that is already interested in art hidden behind some walls out of reach. When I was younger I felt really shy and nervous to walk into a gallery. It was like this quiet precious place that spoke a language that I couldn’t understand relating to art or anything for that matter, that intellectual art garbage talk, explaining everything so it doesn’t make sense to anyone who doesn’t have a degree in art theory. My work indoors is practice for the real work outdoors. It pays me to wreck stuff outside.
I also know that you travel a lot. How would you say your art is different now as opposed as if you would have stayed in Canada and not travel around?
Yes I travel too much… I don’t know at this point if my travels have any real good changes on my art. It makes me feel more cut off and lost from a feeling of home which has been a big theme in my latest works. I guess that is good but I have stopped travelling as much and am trying to focus on my surroundings, where I grew up in and the strange land of Canada. This is where I suck more energy out of than anyplace else.
You are going to live in Australia for a while. How’s that?
I actually cancelled the trip. Who cancels a trip to Australia for free? I dont know why… but I did it.
Because of your travelling you seem to be very active collaborating with artists from other countries. What do you think you share with other artists from that same “scene”?
Well I find when I travel to all these different countries I paint more on the streets of the cities and this is not something I am so accustomed to. I am mainly a painter of the North American rail system so i feel a bit like it is doing something different and new to me.
Also, you are one of the few artists that I know with a style not quite typical Graffiti active in painting freight trains. I know there are many Graffiti writers doing that too but do you find pieces by other artists? Is there still a Hobo waxes and chalk tagging scene? How did you get into painting freight trains in the first place?
The North American freight system is clogged with art now, from Mexico and America and Canada. A lot of the monikers and hobo/train worker art (a culture that has been around since the 1800’s of leaving your name behind as you roam and illegaly hop trains around america) has no more room to flourish besides the corners of boxcars and on other trains that spray paint peoples don’t like to hit. I got introduced to painting trains about 15 years ago in Toronto by another friend who liked how they travelled 1000s of miles around North America.
Your use of color gives is of a “happy” type of feel to your work. Do you deliberately try to portray a happy, optimistic view of things with your work?
Well it is very colorful but I think the people in my work are missing something. They are usually sullen and reaching. Oddly I do not work with color much on trains. I would like to but it is so hard to see in those yards.
In your work there’s a predominance of overblown heads attached to small bodies. What’s with you and heads and faces?
I guess I just always stare at people. I’m always getting in trouble for staring too much. I like expressions. I don’t really pay attention to the body just stare at the faces of people walking by on the streets.
There’s a question that intrigues me from all artists in general and wanted to ask you about: How much of your personal visual universe comes from your childhood? Is the kid inside of you a big percentage of who you are as an artist?
When I think of the voice inside of me… my internal voice it sounds the same to me now as when I was young so I guess it is 100 percent of who I am now.
Not being an artist, every time I find an artist whose work I enjoy, I’m always intrigued on the creative process. In your case is it fast and wild and not rational at all or is it meticulous and slow, do you dismiss a lot of the stuff you do?… I don’t know, tell me a little bit about it.
Well the trains are pretty fast there is not much time… it is dark and sometimes they are moving and people in the yard and all of that comes to play on how the painting might come out… it could be rainy it could be full of mosquitos… my painting inside is like binges. I dont do anything all day I check my email and walk around and talk to people and then I feel it and work intensely for a few hours and then break out of it and do something else. It takes a long time to get a painting done. It is very mind numbing for me, not like the freedom of painting outside.
What have you been working on recently?
Same old same old.
And any interesting project coming up that you can tell us about?
Well, I received a big grant from the Canadian government to make a very small hand made pressing of one hundred books… a very time consuming project… that and painting trains.
Some project you would love to do but didn’t have the chance or nobody has asked you to do yet?
I love painting massive massive walls… but I dont get much opportunity to do those.
Can you turn us into some artists or something interesting that we should know about?
I am not much of a fan of art… I rarely get super inspired by visuals… music is much more interesting.
Somebody we know that moved into New York introduced us to MOMO (www.momoshowpalace.com) and although it’s because of that we know his work I’m certain we would have come to discover him some other way. I guess it’s a small world when you are the kind of person that can’t help but being fascinated by a collage of colored papers pasted onto a wall in a street for no apparent reason and you meet the person that took the time and effort to do it.
First of all when, where, how and why you started to do work in the streets?
I was in love with Graffiti in the late 90’s, but didn’t feel it was my place or culture, until this friend of mine Mike Menace challenged me to look closer, and from then, 1998 or so, the concept has never let go of me. I was traveling back then.
You do work outside and I know you’ve done a bunch of prints and collaborated with us in the “The amazing wandering unit” project and other projects here and there but other than that I have no idea if you do any other “inside” work, aimed at art galleries or commercial work of some kind?
I have a regular job, creating giant sculpture for Jimmy Buffett (a ridiculous cultural(? of sorts) icon). That’s been my main source of income for 10 years now. My street hobby has come inside much more these last two years, working with Paper Monster, we’ve developed prints and studio work that stays indoors. I was slow at first to think of what to do indoors - its a totally different game, that deserves its own due, but now I’m brimming with ideas; things I couldn’t do on the street. If I play it cool, I’ll be in several shows this year in NY.
In your work there’s a predominance of geometric shapes but at the same time I feel somehow that has an overall organic feel to it. What’s with you and geometry? Does it make any sense what I just said about your work looking organic in a way?
I hope so. Last year I was toying with geometry more as a primitive craft/carnival means. The rise of neo rave, 80’s inspired, retro tech graphics makes me nervous. I don’t want to be associated with that exactly, it’s probably too fine a point for people to get, but that culture feels disposable to me. The forms I’m using now were always under the most realistic drawings/ paintings I’d ever felt good about, and I’ve had a long history creating realist looking things, we are just cleaning them up, using that best part naked and raw now.
Again I might be mistaken but could you elaborate on how’s your relationship with the urban (there’s obviously some of that) and the natural (that’s where I might go wrong) and how that reflects on your work?
We’re just talking about the colorful collage, which is fine because my other projects go in too many directions. I’m not exactly a hippy in the city here. But yeah, I do feel stronger ties to the country, mountain folk, the desert, untrained folk artists, small town cultural happenings. I’d prefer to avoid things like hype, gamesmanship, technology fizz, I guess that puts me back in the woods. But being in New York 5 years now, that stuff doesn’t really exist, or I’d adjust my attitude. I walk everywhere in busted shoes and get better conversation out of them, than if I obliged marketers and got with “urban” styles. Back to collage postering - I hope each piece is a bit of an experiment for intellectual delight, each one is very different, they don’t always work, I invent lots of small techniques to try and add to the canon of the craft. I feel nothing for artists that demonstrate our dominant mass media’s power; with standardized production, aping logos and celebrity. That power was already demonstrated when US culture colonized the globe.
Ok, I see what you mean but don’t you want people to have a better view of what you do making them aware of your existence? Maybe you just want each piece you do outdoors to work on its own… I don’t know.
I think I don’t know either. My great friend Joel says if we keep doing the stuff that interests us the most, it will all come together eventually.
There’s a question that intrigues me from all artists in general and wanted to ask you about: How much of your personal visual universe comes from your childhood? Is the kid inside of you a big percentage of who you are as an artist?
Great question. It would be better if I played more. I was a little adult as a child. Obsessively trying to draw well. Now I’m an old man throwing confetti & color everywhere, but it still rarely comes from playfulness (!).
Why is that? What keeps you for being more playful with your work as an artist? Do you feel that you have to be responsible as an artist and playfulnes doesn’t mix well with that?
Protestant upbringing? Hahaha. Maybe. I’ve always admired people that just enjoy life, I’m in the other group, uncomfortable, unsatisfied, itchy. HaHa. If curiosity is playfulness, I’m flush, but its also a sort of a burning.
Your use of color gives is of a “happy” type of feel to your work. Do you deliberately try to portray a happy, optimistic view of things with your work?
HaHa. I love comedy, but that’s not my point. I try to set up uncertain compositions that break with the surroundings, feel unstable, for me there’s a look of change / danger, poor balance, unfair odds. That’s great if people take away optimism, they see the story ending well, I think its undecided. And I love color. I love southern peoples intense use of it (think Caribbean), its feels festive to Northerners, but look closer and the universal darker themes are there, vivid and stuff.
So there’s a balance between bright and dark in your work and you leave it up to the viewer if they see more of one or the other which brings me to a question I end up asking artists when the subject comes up: How much do you want your work to be open to free interpretation and how much do you want to obtain a certain response?
Oh it’s a total give away, thats the best thing about public works. What I make goes on to live another life I can only guess at. I’ve heard wild theories and stories involving my stuff, and seen a wide spectrum of people take to it. I have to have my reasons to initiate the whole business, but its a thousand times more gratifying to see where it ends up.
There’s a generation of artists worldwide that I think that share at least a somehow similar attitude and sometimes some aesthetics coordinates and you seem to be very active collaborating with artists from other countries. Do you feel part of a scene-generation… and what do you think you share with other artists from that same “scene”?
Yeah, the Internet is fueling these scattered scenes. A friend was describing it’s that way for his particular music interest. I’ve fed almost entirely on European artists while living in the US. Now I can flatter your European readers? It’s partially aesthetics and partially a next-level confrontation: the artists doing resistance work already have better educations than us in the US generally, and then the society they’re confronting is more open, subtle, historied, and educated, so the discussion skips the trivial stuff.
Not being an artist, every time I find an artist whose work I enjoy, I’m always intrigued on the creative process. In your case is it fast and wild and not rational at all, is it meticulous and slow, do you dismiss a lot of the stuff you do?… I don’t know, tell me a little bit about it.
I get the best ideas while doing something else. The first (paper napkin) sketch is usually the best. Then I waste an enormous amount of time trying it every other way, to come back to the first, and make it look easy (hopefully).
I saw some bio text about you and I’m sorry but I have to ask: Did you actually live in a geodesic dome? How did that feel like?
It’s great, a really small space feels quite large with no corners. the furniture was built into the walls of course, nothing rectangular. This was in a small village in New Mexico.
What have you been working on recently?
An illustration for a Faile collaborative book due out soon. Been learning to skate a quarter pipe. I’m cutting collage paper right now. I should be in London by the time anybody reads this trying some wacky experiments there. I created an installation at Monkey Town: an art bar in Williamsburg: a fun collaboration with Milton Carter. And I’m still futzing with silkscreen posters as experiments. Each one is different based on this computer thing “The MOMO Maker” (www.momoshowpalace.com/momomaker.html). It’s like the “best of MOMO” for collage. It was mostly for a laugh, but I can’t seem to reach the bottom, so it keeps growing and getting bigger as a project.
Yes, I meant to ask you about that. Do you feel randomness fits well in your discourse?
Maybe as a search tool; watching the MOMO Maker: there’s crap, then there’s one design I would not have thought of. I initaly got into collage because you can cut-out & toss your ingredients freely around, looking for their potential.
And any interesting project coming up that you can tell us about?
I’m focused on two main projects for this year, but need to stay quiet about them. And I just heard: in May I might collaborate with Mellisa Brown, we’re going to destroy each other’s artwork for a month; every other day; she goes, I go, she goes, I go, in a public curated space. I think New York could be fun this summer.
Some project you would love to do but didn’t have the chance or nobody has asked you to do yet?
Ha! Yeah! I want to do for Jamaica what Dewitt Peters did for Haiti. I want to do a very long expanded version of my time-based video project “In New Collage Orleans” for New York. It’d be called “In New Collage York”. I’d like to interview Daniel Burren. I want to make a Graffiti video for Stephin Merritt. I’d like to publish zines more often.
Can you turn us into some artists or something interesting that we should know about?
I never knew anything about Norman McLaren until Nano put me onto him yesterday. I’m really amazed, 3 minutes of his work might sum up all of mine, and 70 years before I began. Same goes for Daniel Burren. He was bombing 100’s of posters globally for good conceptual reasons begining in 1968. Jonkanoo is [another(!)] amazing creol culture & history: Caribbean carnival. A recent show of Zaha Hadid’s prepartory art works blew me away.
We recentlty celebrated the opening of a new exhibition by UK artist (www.mattsewell.co.uk). Tree lover and master of organic ,this neo-hippy ilustrator Matt Sewell presents his premier solo exhibition in Spain right here in Subaquatica. Titled “The sun shines everyday” the artist describes the work he has elaborated for the ocassion this way: “Is about wanderings, fleeting thoughts, leaving home, migrating birds, castles in the sky, her face in the clouds. The beauty of the world and how nature can look after itself, tigers and crocodiles. The sun and Mother earth”
Proud son of the 70s Matt is known for his street work and his illustrations, with influences that come from European comic books from the end of the 20th century and his childhood in the countryside. The output is to no-one’s surprise a quite optimistic and colorful body of work whether if it’s out on the streets, his studio or commercial work as an illustrator.
Since Remed opened the exhibition calendar with his buddy 3ttman he’s been restlessly travelling around the globe and proving an amazing evolution as an artist and indeniable coherence of his work. In this interview with him he shows an attitude and view of himself as an artist free of prejudices that for some reason is not too common and that we love as much as his work.
First of all when, where, how and why you started to consider yourself an artist?
Well, I think I’ve dreamed about being an artist since I was quite young but I never thought it was possible until I met the father of one of my friends who was an artist in Roubaix. When I discovered his atelier and the treasures that it contained, I began to feel it was possible to be the artist I am nowadays. I really want to thank my man Boulaone and his father Madjoub Ben Bella for having opened my eyes, and made my dream possible. After my studies I started to work in a design agency and then I quit two years later to work on my own. As I was drawing and painting more and more, I felt artist more and more, and became really proud of it, while many people around me had the will of being an artist but were afraid saying they were. I love being an artist and i’m proud of the decission I made.
And when, where, how and why did you start to do art in the streets?
The first time I worked in the street was in 1999 wih my broooother 3ttman (wesh a gueule!!). He came back from work with a big roll of virgin stickers. We started filling those white spaces. I started making eyes, nearly closed, with a kind of “malice” inside. I first pasted them wherever it was possible and once I put one on the beautifull seducing face of a woman on a advertising poster. I was really surprised by the impact of it, and how it changed the soft expression of the woman face into a vicious looking one, the one behind the mask of her “selling” function.
In your work there’s a predominance of characters and text. In the case of characters do you have a collection of them with their own personality that you use here and there or you come up with new ones for every new piece?
I don’t really have a collection of characters. At the beginning I developed a face. That was more or less my self-representation. As a witness of life or maybe just a revendication of existence… his expression wasn’t thought of before I did it. It’s just a reflection of how i felt while doing it or at that moment of my life: sometimes happy, sometimes sad, or angry. But most times I tried to lie when I saw it was too sad. Because it’s too easy to keep on being lifeless, and it don’t like spreading that vibe. Even on my canvases… if I talk about sadness, or bad feelings, I’m always trying to find an alternative, hope… In the meantime, I realized a face was not enough to express what I wanted to, and started to work on hands, patterns, and then body. That’s how shadowblackman came out and allowed me to put myself in situation, in movement, interacting with the environment.
And about the text and the word games, most artists don’t want to be too precise about the meaning (if any) of their pieces but you even give tips!! Why is that? Do you have a clear idea and concept for each new piece and like everyone to understand fully?
Of course I would like people to understand the deep part of my work. It’s not only about aesthetics. I spend quite a lot of time in front of the white page, wall or canvas, before writing something. There’s a story I’d like people to enter in. It’s really important for me creating something true and coherent. Most times, the concept of the piece is clear to me, and it gives an essential extra value to my art. My art is me. But in a way it could be you. It helps me, and I hope it could help you. It’s like the walk of a thought to the next one. I really love to explain the way an artpiece has been created, little by little, the first word, or icon, already has the seed of the one that will follow. It’s just waiting for me to find the next one. I’ve thought many times about recording my voice explaining this or that canvas. Because I want people to get it fully. And sometimes, people add an extra sense to one of the word I use. And most of all I like their interpretation. I believe in the “hasard qui n’existe pas”.
Also, it’s really good the way you make the letters part of the art. What’s up with you and letters? Big fan of typography or maybe just hand made type?
I don’t think I’ve ever been fan of typography. Text has always been present in my art since the beginning. I realized that I needed a collection of fonts wide enough to fit with the iconography I developed. All the type I drew was inspired by some existent types, but I usually look at one, forget it, and then make mine.
There’s a generation of artists worldwide that I think that share at least a somehow similar attitude and sometimes some aesthetics coordinates and you seem to be very active collaborating with artists from other countries. Do you feel part of a scene-generation… and what do you think you share with other artists from that same “scene”?
In all the travels I’ve made, for love of art, when I meet other artists, I always feel a strong energy, a strong will of living the life we choose, and make it possible in a system that is not really made for us. I feel that we represent the alternative. And it fills myself. I love to know that artists I met share the same life. We are really lucky and conscious of what we accomplishing. Something is happening!
You live a little bit all over the place: São Paulo, Madrid, Lille… I’m sure that helps you be in touch with many different artists. How’s that affecting your artistic activity and attitude as an artist?
Like I said, travelling and meeting other artists makes me stronger, because it gives me the feeling of being part of something important, whether I will be remembered or forgotten, I love to believe in us. UNITY brodaaaas! special biiiig up to the great artists who are: my everfriend 3ttman aka brad beckam, my love Fefe (cochillo bolinda!), and to my brothers, artists I respect such as Jiem, Nano, El tono, Pelucas, Zosen, Debens, Sixe, Kafre, Soviet, Momo, Maya Hayuk, Ekta, A.purdy, Andy Rementer, Dem, Orion, Kaboko, Ramon Martins, Raquel Shambri, Ciro, Speto, Carlinhos, Espak, Mikos, Isham, Mercurochrom, Buenos Aires stencil, Blu, Mark Jenkins , Tatone, Farmprod and many more I never met and hope to meet once…
Your work, for someone that sees a pic online, could be easily think is all computer-made becase of the clean lines and in fact you seem to be a very traditional artist in the way you work. Never thought of working with Illustrator, Freehand…?
I used to draw with illustrator when I was 22 til 24. I learned and understood many things. It showed me the beauty of mathematics. It gave me a graphic point of view that is still one at the foundations of my work today. But afterwards, I rediscovered the beauty of spontaneity and the “alèatoire” dimension in handdrawing. I am “mathematic” in the way I compose the image, but I keep something “human”, more about the “heart”, in the way I use the line. I like when it’s close to perfection globally, but still imperfect in the detail.
Also your work seems to be perfect for taking commercial comissions from brand and doing work as an illustrator but you don’t like it very much. Is that right? Why?
That’s right, I used to be a graphic designer before I made the choice to be an artist.
In your work there’s a predominance of characters and it also it makes me think of animation and comics and about how much of your chilldhood might reflect on your work. Can you tell us about those influences and how much of your art speaks for the child inside of you?
The influence is not really conscious. I can’t say…maybe a mix of everything I’ve seen until today.I cultivate the child in me. I prefer the word “utopia” than “cynism”.
It seems like apart from commercial work and personal work that can be sold at galleries and so on, many artists find another ways to portray their work in the form of assorted merchandising such as t-shirts, toys, etc… more accesible to most people because they are cheaper. What’s your experience and “policy” in that field?
First, I want my art to be “original” and “non-functional”. So I’m trying to keep far away from industry buisness. I don’t want my work to be seen as “decoration” but as “art”. From my point of view, silkscreening on paper is a good alternative because, it produces an affordable piece of art, it’s not a functional object as a t-shirt, and it’s still rare, original and handmade.
Not being an artist, every time I find an artist whose work I enjoy, I’m always intrigued on the creative process, tell me a little bit about it.
Nearly every canvas I do, is sketched before. Sometimes I do one sketch, which is a part of a canvas, I reproduce it on the canvas, then do another sketch, or many until I find the one that will work besides the other one on the canvas. And sometimes I do a global sketch. But everytime there’s an evolution between the sketch and the final result.
What have you been working on recently?
On a series of colourful large canvases representing a couple making love. I’ve already made two, and still have one to do. You can see one in the galery Geraldine Zberro, in Paris. 8°. 3ttman and myself have just painted the entrance of the famous ;) atelier “LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES”, in Madrid, calle Noviciado.
And any interesting project coming up that you can tell us about?
I’m now sketching for a huge wall project in Curitiba, Brazil. The theme is “Everything you see”. It’s for the festival of theatre of Curitiba.
Some project you would love to do but didn’t have the chance or nobody has asked you to do yet?
Sculpture.
Can you turn us into some artists or something interesting that we should know about?
I really enjoy outsider art, and especially Carlo Zinelli. I also recently discovered the art of Henry Moore and really love his sculptures. And, of course , you should discover the art of people I mentioned in a previous question.
With the ocassion of the publication of the book that originates from the project of the same name, we are hosting a short two week show with the touring art exhibition “A Nice Set” (www.aniceset.com) curated by Plus Et Plus in NY. The exhibition consist of a series of slipmats (those pieces used by DJs to cue their vinyls) customized by a superb selection of artist from all over the world: Build, Carlos “Mare 139″ Rodriguez, David Ellis, Ian “Swifty” Swift, Hort, Jeff Staple, Jeremyville, Luca Ionescu, Marc Atlan among others.
You can find this book at our space in Madrid and here at our online shop.
