A few years ago we produced a semi-documentary DVD with short clips about different Spanish street artists of that time. One of them was Deno JR (www.denotattoos.com) that came from a Hip Hop Graffiti background but whose style had evolved into something else. Nowadays he’s a successful Tatto artist but he still works in different media, including the streets so we thought it would be nice to interview him and see what he’s up to lately.
First of all when, where, how and why you started to do work in the streets?
I really never even thought of doing anything in any other place. I just wanted to do Graffiti. It was 1989. I used to skate and spend most of the time out in the streets so in a way everything seemed part of a same thing: Skate, Graffiti, Rap music (although back them I used to listed to Metal). Well, the thing is that it happened naturally. I took some markers and started in my neighbourhood, Coslada, I guess that looking for what many other people doing the same: recognition, fame, notoriety… Shortly after that some friends and myself formed KR2, that gave the whole thing a more orthodox character, closer to the classical Graffiti back then. And we did so much that I don’t think I will be able to top that ever. We would paint every single day: We stole the paint, did sketches and painted. Al the time focused on that and this lasted for around 10 years.
In your street work that background it’s obvious, mostly in your techniques, but you’ve also done stickers and pasting posters and your style is not precisely only big letters and characters. Maybe you are a purist in the philosophy but not in the aesthetics?
Like I said, my beginnings come from classical Graffiti but at some point I had the need to change the language I was using and at least try to make it more personal. It was then when I started doing what I call urban interventions like pasting posters, make JR toys to “tag” around with them, make paintings and hang them in the streets, stickers… It was a new visual universe that seemed to flow naturally and that came from my own personal need. In a way it’s kind of a schizo behaviour because I would still do the more conventional Graffiti pieces while at the same time doing that other more personal stuff.
I guess that all that must have come from nurturing from influences outside the Graffiti world…
Philosophy is probably the biggest external source of input into my artwork, the study of aesthetics theory and art theory… all that made possible new expressive methods and their fundamentation. As for specific influences I can name painters, illustrators, Tattoo artists and of course Graffiti writers. I can list just a few, maybe the most representative: Jean Dubuffet, Antonio Saura, Daniel Higgs, J.M. Basquiat, Keith Haring, Sento… well, that’s quite a mixture.
What do you feel like the primary idea behind art in the streets, what do you admire the most from other street artists, their style, their technique… and what do you feel is accesory?
The main idea is, in a way, democratization of art because the street is an open medium, open to anyone. It’s not mediated as a preconceived space for art and that’s whey it can also reach a more plural audience. As for other artists it’s difficult to choose a single aspect that interest me the most. For instance, I’m captivated by the creativity or personality of Besdo and at the same time I find Buny’s overwhelming presence fascinating. It’s a little like asking a father which one of his sons he loves the most. I love the idea of bombing, the purse essence of trying to be everywhere and at the same time I also love the strength of a single image that can transmit so much so I feel somehow in that crack, in that wound because both things hurt as much and I think that the dialectics between both is what gives me the strength to paint. Without one of those two aspects the whole thing wouldn’t be as appealing to me.
You live in Madrid, a city that has gone through different phases in it’s Street art activity but that has never really been a clear reference on an international level but at the same time there’s been a lot of very active people here… How would you describe the present moment and how’s your own personal relationship with this city?
For me, Madrid is the center of the universe. I’ve been living here for over 30 years and my relationship with the city I think is the same for me as for many other people living here, a hate-love relationship. As for the Street art is a very active city, there’s alway people doing it, the city is “dirty” and full in that sense, but at the same time it never seems to become a reference probably because people get tired or they come and go. There are more and more Graffiti writers every day but at the same time many people that will never go out and paint again. Also there isn’t a connection between old-schoolers and the new guys so the tradition gets lost and consequently the knowledge that comes with it. Because tradition is neccesary as Palazuelo said: “What’s not tradition is plagiarism”.
It seems clear that one way or another you keep having, after so many years, the need to bring some of yourself to the streets. What’s the motivation that keeps you active now that you have a different age, responsabilities, a family life…?
Well, my life has certainly changed a lot in the pas few years: I have a beautiful 1 year old son, I’m married, a have a job and of course the responsabilities but painting is something that has always been there in my life and I’ve been doing it for two thirds of my life so, it’s inherent to who I am. It’s part of my identity and it gives sense to my life. That’s why I can, after a lot of effort, still find the time to go out to paint, maybe even a train once in a while…It’s something I need to feel alive.
On the other hand there’s your activity as a professional Tatto artist. Do you feel both thins are part of the same artistic output? Do you have very different styles?
Yes, I have a work tattooing and I love it and it also allows me to travel often and paint in other cities around the world almost very month. My Tattoo and street work are connected and there’s constantly a exchange of imagery but I always conceive every new work according to its medium. I don’t paint tattoos in the street or do Graffiti or Street art tattoos. Every design has it’s own context and purpose and at the same time there’s an open communication between both worlds.
Besides in the world of Tattoo I guess it’s not seen as being a sellout those who make a living with their art, like some of the most purist Graffiti writers sometimes argue. But when it comes to paintings, drawings, etc… work that you can try selling through galleries and so on, what’s your experience in that sense?
I’ve never had problems when selling my artwork or designs. I think it has a lot to do with respect. If you’ve grown into this from the beginning and you’ve shown that this is something you really like I don’t think there’s any reason for which anyone can criticize you for selling your work and maybe even making a living with it, besides doing your street work. Maybe it’s a problem with outsiders, newcomers and opportunists trying to get ahead of the game skipping steps and just offering themselves as urban artists to the best bidder when they’ve haven¡t been in the streets that much. What do you think the Graffiti people of this people after they have drawers at home full of bills and they’ve had their problems with the police and so on and the time and effort they’ve put into it without getting paid and being all so ephemeral while there’s other people that didn’t go through all that and are making their way into the world of art galleries or getting features in art books labeling themselves as urban artists? It’s complicated but in my case nobody has said anything against me for showing in galleries. In fact what I’ve received usually is compliments and many Graffiti writers come to the openings, I feel that love… but of course there are always exceptions.
And being into the Tattoo scene I imagine some of it has translated into your tattoos, right?
Of course Graffiti has influenced my Tattoo work. If it wasn’t for Graffiti I would have never discover my creative side. Besides also being a way of communicating in an urban environment, Tattoo has contributed to my street work with an iconography that after being interpreted by me has given me a wider range of ideas to work with. Besides both disciplines share a ephemeral spirit which seems very appealing to me.
Of course you are not the only Graffiti writer turned Tattoo artist. I can think of Barcelona old-schooler Inupie, or superlegend Seen. I wonder if you can spot a certain feel when you see somebody elses tattoo that makes you recognize if that was done by a Graffiti writer-Tatto artist.
Maybe there’s some of that but it depends a lot on your style. My own style with tattoos is similar to my Graffitis in the sense that I use simple patterns with clear lines and solid colors… maybe because of that you can see some of the Graffiti in my tattoos and the other way around although I depend on a different iconography. However there is a few Tattoo artists that I’ve only discovered afterwards that they were also Graffiti writers.
Your work has a series of elements that define your own personal symbolism that might result a little obscure to the rest of us. Would you try to give us a few hints?
I’m obsessed with certain images and hence the repetition of certain elements in my work such as the skull, the anthropomorphic animals, icon from occultism and religions and all this often combined in a provocative or incoherent manner, of course intentionally. The skull is death, yours and mine, the certainty of being finite and contingent. As for the animal I’ve always been fascinated with them. I’ve always live with them or picked insects or birds or snakes and thus my great interest in recreating them, animate and give them some some of character, human or divine. And with the symbolism that I use I try to provoke like when I combine the star of David with the dollar sign or sometimes I use it to give testimony of something, my roots, for instance if I use a half moon and a cross or somethings just to use the power of these symbols.
And what have you been up to lately?
Now I’m tattooing 4 days a week which gives time to go out and paint once a week or prepare some paintings for some show or a commission. I also try to draw every day and enjoy my son, my wife, and well, my bulldogs too!
Any plans for the future you can tell us about?
I have a lot of good news and plans and I hope they come true little by little.
What project you haven’t done yet and would like it if somebody proposed it to you?
I’ve love to do a world tour painting and showing my work in each city but really I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t want to do that which makes it more difficult. I need an agent so anyone interested let me know.
Any artist or initiative you would like to recommend?
The record-book from Daniel A.I.U. Higgs: “Atomic yggdrasil tarot” published by Thrill Jockey, the work of Alejandro Jodorowsky, “La danza de la realidad” and the autobiographic writings from Jean Dubuffet.
This past saturday September 20th we celebrated the opening of the solo show of Brazilian artist Fefe Talavera, that we interviewed not long ago around here.
And beware: Fefe Talavera is coming to town with the beasts from her inner self! Fefe is an artist from São Paulo that shares the raw creative energy and freedom of the new generation of urban artists coming from the streets of the Brazillian megalopolis. Her career as an artist has taken her to galleries and art fairs and events around the globe: Moscow, Buenos Aires, New York, Seville, Berlin, Los Angeles, Mexico DF, Vienna, Amsterdam… and she has recently been featured in magazines and websites for her succesful show in Amsterdam in collaboration with the legendary NY artist and Graffiti pioneer Doze Green. This is her first solo show in Spain.
Doodler supreme, British illustrator, visual artist, Jon Burgerman (www.jonburgerman.com) is our guest artist for september 08. As this character creator’s work evolves, gets more complex and characters are lost in the intricately duddled patterns, the artist is as accessible and here’s the result of the questionnaire we tortured him with:
First of all: Why, where, how… did you become an artist?
I went to school, I went to college, I went to University, I graduated, I kept working, I traveled, I ate, I slept and woke up and now some people call me an artist.
There’s a generation of artists worldwide that I think that share at least a somehow similar attitude and sometimes some aesthetics coordinates whether coming from Street art, illustration… and 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”?
We probably share a lot of cultural keystones, we grew up watching, reading and listening to the same things and were part of the first generation to enjoy a shrinking world due to leaping technology. Other than that I think a lot of people share the excitement and pleasure in just creating work, and meeting similarly dysfunctional but decent people. I disfunction all of the time.
Any experience bringing your art to the streets?
I’ve not done a lot of art on the streets. When I was starting I mainly dropped stickers I’d made out and about on my travels. Quite innocently I was just putting my work up, I wasn’t really aware of any sort of street scene or community in stickers existing. Later I did, it was like a spotty cousin to more traditional Graffiti and what people started calling street art. It was really good hanging out with and meeting lots of these different artists. The scene seems to of been legitimised now and over the years I done less and less direct work that you might call street art. Mainly because I’ve been busy doing other things and perhaps I don’t feel I need to spread my work about so much anymore. People might be getting sick of it.
You live in Nottingham, that, at least from the distance doesn’t seem to be precisely boiling with artistic activity. And you seem to be very busy with shows and work for all kinds of clients, in the UK and worldwide. Do you find it difficult to be in contact with other artists, clients, different things that might be happening in bigger cities or you are pretty much connected through the internet and such?
I don’t want to be touched and harangued, smudged and pinched. I like the distance, I’m happy to recede from view. I’m easily contactable and eager to please but after that I’ve never found I have to hang out in the right places and network (shudders). Nottingham isn’t a hotbed of activity. There is good stuff that goes on here but it’s very small and sometimes a little insular. I don’t mind living away from bustling scenes, I’m too reserved, repressed and shy to bully my way up and get noticed in a big creative community. I’ve found it better to have distance and to have the time and space to make my own work undisturbed and undistracted. In the marvelous age of the internet and affordable travel I do not feel cut off. I can dip into scenes all over the world, and when I get tired and in need of some time on my own I can step away and retreat back to my little hidey-hole. I won’t live in Nottingham forever but for the last few years it’s been an adequate place to be based. I’ve not found it too difficult to be connected, I’ve connected with people through my work. The work is what interests people, not me. It’s not important if I’m in a place, it’s the work.
You do work as an illustrator and that’s usually a on commission occupation but how different is your commercial work to your personal purely artistic work? Do you feel that once you reach a certain level of recognition you are more liberated from the client’s restrictions because if they choose you for some project is because they know what you usually do and expect you to something in that line?
Yes, recognition can allow you a freer reign, as you’re not just being commissioned to create some work but for who you are as well. This does seem a little strange to be at times. That expectation can also be a problem when an art director thinks they know what you’re going to do but actually their notion is fuzzy and flawed. I’ve been lucky enough that for a long time most of the commercial work I get offered is open for me to work as I like. This is good as I fail miserably when trying to be a proper illustrator. I’m not much of an illustrator at all. But there is an expectation with gallery shows and what could be seen as less commercial projects too. There is always an expectation and therefore something to try and live up to, which is often both daunting and ridiculous. I am interested in the commodification of my work, and how it is viewed differently, dependent on the form it takes and how that form is offered to people. It’s a fun game; toying with the expectations, assumptions and prejudices. Often, of course, I fall into the trap of that expectation, delivering work that responses to what i think is best suited to being in a gallery, or on a t-shirt etc and therefore enhancing further expectations. The contradiction is endemic to having aspirations of being an artist whilst trying to earn a living through your work by making things that could be art.
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 accessible to most people because they are cheaper. I know that you have been producing your own small runs of sculptures, t-shirts, etc…and also designed some toys for “designer toys” brands, even your own series!. What’s your experience and “policy” in that field?
More accessible too because they are familiar. The experience has been good, most of the time I’ve been allowed to do as I wish but at the same time there is a much more black and white view, from the companies, that the merchandise is made to be sold. If something can be tweaked a little to make it easier to understand or look more appealing, it should be done. On the whole this hasn’t bothered me because its effects haven’t affected me very much. One on project I had to change my overall concept for some toys and I found that disappointing. The objects themselves remained exactly the same but the way in which they were described was altered. The simplifying of and dumbing down of the idea was a shame, even though I suspected the idea would get picked upon. It would have made the product a little more knowing and interesting than similar things out there already. My policy is always try and push for what you want, 100% your ideal supreme scenario but then don’t be surprised if it gets reduced down as you work on the project. There’s always factors that interferes with your initial plans.
And also, because of how many different brands and institutions have been counting with you for so many different projects, from painting a truck, a hotel room, designing toys, video games… where do you find yourself more comfortable and what would be something you would have to reject because it’s simply out of your field of work?
I sort of enjoy all of these things and hate them at the same time too. Hate perhaps is the wrong word, but it’s that extra level of concentration and energy you have to plough into doing something new. It’s uncomfortable, which is bad but ultimately good, as inevitably you push yourself, experiment and maybe surprise yourself too. I find I get bored easily, it’s no good for me to only work in one way on one sort of project all the time. Most of the different projects all have the same starting point, which is drawing. So this is a comforting and familiar place to begin a new project from. From a drawing you can go anywhere. I reject projects that ask me to do something I really cannot do or really do not want to do, like work for a cow slaughtering fast food chain. I cannot place my work or characters into a world where they just would not belong. Even if the premise is commercial, as long as I can make my concepts fit, it is possible to get involved in it. I cannot animate beyond sixty seconds, I cannot build websites or program games. I cannot build structures, cut clothing or cast sculptures. With collaboration though, anything can be achieved.
Now, the doodle question: What’s exactly this whole doodle thing and where would you draw the line (precisely) between doodling and just drawing, what any given illustrator does? By the way: Is it originally yours (and your pal Sune Ehlers) invention?
I don’t think anyone invented doodling, it’s existed as long as drawing and mark making has. For me the act of doodling is when you are drawing but without a full mind on the job at hand. You allow your hand and brain to be connected without too much interruption from your thoughts. You can doodle on the guitar and you can doodle when you dance but it’s most common when holding a pen. I can’t draw a line between doodling and drawing, they can be one and the same. Doodling is about lifting your foot from the pedal and just gliding along on momentum for a bit. Sune calls doodling duudling, but I figured that is just his eccentric Danish want. We’ve maybe popularised the term a little, I’ve encountered many ‘doodle’ sites and blogs over the last few years that never existed ten years ago. The style I draw in sometimes gets called a doodle style, probably owing to the loose, looping, easy intertwined lines I use. I’m not sure there really is a well defined doodle-style, it’s not as obvious as saying that work is in a scribble style, or a messy style, or a scratchy style. I would call my work ‘doodles’ when I was starting out because I didn’t feel it was right to call it art, or drawing or design or illustration. Doodle was a way of protecting it (and me), suggesting that it might not be ‘high-brow’ and therefore not worth further enquiry. Thus I would avoid any potential tricky questioning and would be allowed to continue with my work undisturbed. People might ask ‘are you an artist’ and I’d say I’m a doodler.
And another “label” people have come up with in recent years that you also seem to be part of: “character design”. Same question more or less: What would you say it’s new and different about this for a new term to be coined to name a series of different creators?
Character design has been around as long as written language hasn’t it ? I don’t have a clear understanding of what that label really means. If you draw characters are you not a character designer? Or does this new label refer to a certain type of character art? If you look at the excellent Pictoplasma books, who might be to blame for some of this confusion, the range of characters and different styles is overwhelming, so I can’t think the term is bound by a stylistic grouping. I can only think that the term encompasses a collection of artists, who not only design characters, but also actively push them out into the world, through their art and merchandise, beckoning you to leave your world and join them in theirs. Baseman calls it Pervasive art, which is a neat term. But then this is more than just character design, it relies of there being a world for them to exist in too. See, I’m still confused.
And through doodling and designing characters the thing is you create a world very Jon Burgerman. It’s usually very colorful but I’m not sure if we should interpret that because of that it’s a happy world. How would you describe the mood of that universe and its inhabitants?
It’s not a completely shiny, happy world even though there is great silliness and fun to be found. There are flaws, contradictions, anxieties and doubts (which are all good mines for humour). The universe is fantastical but the moods are grounded, human ones, sometimes hyper-emotional and other times completely stoic. I think about the complete absurdities of our world, the strangeness of other people, how so little makes sense, how I feel remote. Maybe making characters and scenarios is trying to make sense of things around me. They are reflections moving on the surface a puddle of ink.
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?
I think it’s a big percentage of the person I am now. The art work follows on from that.
I’m clinging on to, making deep finger nail marks in, all I can recall of my childhood. I’m taking as much as I can carry into my adult years.
Not being an artist I’m always curious about the creative process. In your case it looks very organic but maybe the process is more digital than it seems, and for instance I don’t know if for you it’s a question of enjoying the process rather than the result or any process is good as long as the result is satisfaying?… I don’t know, tell me a little bit about it.
It can be a very simple process; Everything starts off as a drawing. It may get scanned, cleaned up a little, coloured in and then sent somewhere for printing. If it doesn’t need to go near the computer then it doesn’t. I guess this is the physical process and that the process of thinking about what to draw is more interesting - if not a million times more complicated. Most of the time it is in the physical process were the joy resides. It’s the making of the marks, applying colour, bringing something to life that is fun. That is when you are playing the game, trying to solve it or come to a conclusion. When it’s over it is like the puzzle has been completed and it holds a lot less interest. But I hope some of the energy and spirit in making it resonants in the final piece.
What have you been working on recently?
I have a solo exhibition in Hamburg at the Helium Cowboy gallery on August 30th, so I’ve been mainly focusing my attention on making works for that. Over the last few months I’ve also done some live drawing at a festival, a magazine cover, some editorial illustrations, a toy customisation, some clothing designs and worked on some new toy designs.
And any interesting project coming up that you can tell us about?
I have a monograph called “Pens are My Friends”, published by idN coming out on September 25th. The book is 300 pages and is accompanied with a DVD, mini book and fold out poster. On the same day my collection of mini figures, produced by Kidrobot are going to be released. They are called the Heroes of Burgertown. I’ve been working on the book for about a year and the toys for a couple of years so it’s great that they’re nearly ready to be released. Beyond that I’ve just started working on a little computer game idea, a live doodle sound project and am going to make an album where I do not produce any of the music or sounds myself. Everything will be contributed by people who have got in touch with me via my website. It will be a collaborative effort where I get to boss everyone around. It is possible it will end badly. I am also working on a small comic book, which will be both stupid and silly and badly drawn.
Some project you would love to do but didn’t have the chance or nobody has asked you to do yet?
I’d like to create an animated TV series, design the interior for a restaurant or bar and make a hot air balloon.
Can you turn us into some artists or something interesting that we should know about?
I’m interested, without even being able to understand too much, about the Large Hadron Collider. If the Earth wobbles on September 10th (when they test it for the first time) we know who might be to blame.
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.
