3ttman
May 20th, 2007
3ttman (www.3ttman.com) was, together with his friend and partner in crime, Remed, one of the first artist that we had a proper show for in Subaquatica. Back then we didn’t know much about him but he showed up with a nice selection of finished paintings ready to hang from our walls and we couldn’t say no. Now, over a year later we wanted to have a chat with him abou his work, his motivations and his unstoppable energy.
First of all when, where, how and why you started to do work in the streets?
I started around 99 in Lille with Remed. We had been paiting wood pieces and canvases at his place or mine like forever but at that point we found a big pile of stickers somewhere and decided to do something with them around the boring Lilloise streets. It was then when I created the 3ttman character (”tt” is short for head “tête” in french) and would make him do something while Remed would draw eyes and paste them in the posters on the streets. Not long after that I moved to Spain and continued with stencils, the Madrid stars and the 3ttman inside with the sentence “environmental agitator” next to it. But I didn’t do that many of these and never actually got in touch with the local street artists so my love story with Madrid streets had a 2-3 year stop. Well, everytime Remed was visiting we would end up doing something with just one spraycan. He was more into this at the time than myself. In fact the first time I used a spraycan to paint on a wall was in Lille trying to mix some faces with elefants and the police catched us so we spent the whole evening, night and the next moring at the police station and we didn’t even finished and they didn’t even saw us actually painting!!. The whole tagging and letters was never my thing. I respect it but I just don’t get it. For me what’s interesting about doing stuff on the streets is comunicating with the average guy going by, looking at what I did and that the old lady walking her dog, the boy with his 4 wheel bike or the dude coming out of the Nasti club feel something about it… after all that’s the people that’s going to have to live with what you painted everytime they go by. So one day I bumped into one of this walls all covered with posters and I had the idea of use it. Since that was a lot of information imposed on the inocent pedestrians I thought it would be good to spice it up a little bit and atb the same time I was respecting the environment. It was then when I really started liking it more and getting into it and here I am now, getting a space ready to share as a studio with Spok, Eltono, Nano4814, and Lucho il Vaporetto.
In your street work I’ve noticed that you seem to like collaborating with other artists of every kind. It’s not unusual at all i Street art and Graffiti but in your case I can tell you really enjoy working with other people. Tell me a little bit how these collaborations happen and so on
I love it. First because yo have so much more fun having a few beers and painting with a friend and second because it’s always a challenge to fuse together two or more different styles that in principle have nothing to do with each other. More in general too but particularly with the whole poster wall thing I’m interested in that background that all participant artists share because you are working with pre-existent information and the game consists in reinterpreting it. This way you create expectation with those who had seen that wall before. The posters have their own style and each artista a different one from the other/s but the wall should end up making sense as a whole. So, before painting anything, we always discuss it and come up with some subject. For instance, when we did this wall with Sins, Suso33 and Mosh in december we chose xmas and with Zosen in february it was the mass media. So no quick throw up and keep moving. I think it less selfish this way and it¡s obvious in the final result.
You are french and have been living in Madrid for some time. This is an interesting city but sometimes not very stimulating in the cultural sense or for making a living being an artist. What’s your relationship with this city like?
See, last saturday we were doing “cornering” with Tono and Spok around Malasaña, the place was completely packed with people and we were saying that Madrid is so cool because no matter how hard they enforce laws against drinking alcohol in the streets people love being out in the streets. And because with the posters interventions the police more or less let you paint, because it’s still a human-scale city and it’s not unusual that you bump into someone you know and end up getting wasted at the Nasti club. Madrid is a city that still has some of that typical spanish feel to it. And I do find it very stimulating. Maybe Albacete… but Madrid? I see it as a melting pot with a lot of interesting projects cooking up. “MADRID 2012 FOREVER!”. Everyone coming from out of town to Madrid are crazy about the city. Ekta is thinking about moving in for some time and Remed or Pelukas are thinking about it too so artistically a lot of things are moving soon. It’s definitely not as nice or easy as Barcelona but that’s the charm of it.
It’s clear that you have a very direct relationship with the city and its streets and the people and to certain extent a political message in your work but I’m not sure if you main point has to do with the whole claiming urban spaces for the people thing…
That’s what I meant when I was speaking about being less selfish in the approach to art in the streets. For me the interesting thing about working in the streets is that you have to adapt to the medium, the people, the culture of the place.. here you are painting. I’m not going to paint the same way in Madrid that in Morocco or on top of a rock in Torrelodones, and if you keep that in mind there’s a greater chance that people will relate to your work and show respect for it. And about the political standpoint and don’t know if that’s the right word because that’s not what I intend to do but of course I like to deal with social and cultural subjects that affect us all and precisely because I don’t want my work to look very political I always use humour when I approach these subjects. Humour is definitely a much more inmediate and powerful way to communicate than others.
On the other hand you’ve been working as a graphic designer and I don’t know if you still do. How do you deal with having to do both the artistic work and the design work?
Well, lately I’m not doing either but a Master in construction, electrical and plumbing work in this new space we’ve rented as a studio. Seriously, before doing the header for this site because of the interview I had not touched the computer for so long… In any case, when I feel better is when I paint and do walls so if I can manage to make a living just from that, so much better
One of the things you do is these t-shirts and I like how instead of just doing a design and printing it on a bunch of t-shirts you look for ways to make them unique, like sewing felt unto them and so on. Can you tell us about that?
T-shirts and clothing in general are an artistic medium like any other that you can work on to display and communicate ideas. When I started the 102porciento brand with Martín the idea was having fun and doing t-shirts in small runs painting directly on them and silkscreen printing them in very limited quantities to diferentiate ourselves from big brands. After that we experimented with other techniques because everyone uses silkcreen printing for t-shirts so we started sewing stuff or mixing techniques but because I’m such a lousy businessman the whole thing is taking off very slowly.
Preparing the interview I noticed something that I hadn’t seen on you website before and that you never mentioned and it’s those photographs. Is it a main part of you artistica output or just something you do every once in a while…?
I still do it but mainly when I travel because it alows me to put some memories of the places I visit and people I see into that black box. I use an old reflex camera, the Canon FTb, is my travel companion and I love it… I like the object, so manual with all those clicks and noises the mechanism makes. And of course I consider it part of my creative work but probably because it’s more personal I don’t talk about it much.
Remed, with whom you did the joint show in Subaquatica and that’s also such a good friend is another amazing artist with whom you seem to have such a nice understanding when working together where it’s hard to say who did what in your collaborative pieces. Can you elaborate on that?
Remed is my friend and a really cool guy and we learned to paint together and truth is since then we haven’t stopped. He must be one of the most motivated artists that I’ve met. Wherever we go we have so much fun painting together so when we meet, there we go… The good thing is that we talk a lot about what we are doing before and while we paint. We always choose a subject that allows us to have a guideline and because we’ve know each other for so long there’s nothing wrong if we paint over what the other did if we think it’s for the best. We add, paint on, erase… what the other did and that’s why everything seems so integrated. And at the same time we learn a lot from each other because when we spend some time apart each one’s style evolves and diferentiate so when we get together after that new and nice stuff comes out. It rules!
Your work has recurring elements that define your own personal and very characteristic symbology. Could you give us some clue of what any of this means (the numbers, the 3-headed man…)
Maybe is just because “3 is the magic number”… I think, still not sure, that I like the number because contrary to the evil-good or ugly-beautiful balance it represents lack of that balance and what I want to portray with that character is the human imbalance. I mean, he has 3 thinking heads for the same body that contradict or ally with each other. They semm to be always disagreeing but it’s still one single entity, like human beings, that reacts, thinks or behaves differently in different circunstances. The numbers I use come from an association I did with Remed called “Drive59″ (59 is our post code up there in the north of France) so that’s where the numbers in the heads come from. I like that one because it leaves the faces without expression so you never know what’s their position regarding some situation and it allows for a greater margin of interpretation. The goal is not to criticise anyone but reflect the human nature. I don’t if it makes sense…
What’s your experience with the gallery world?
I guess it must be cool to have a galery supporting you in doing what you like the most. But for my experience it’s a world where supply and demand have too much weight and the artwork itself matters little beyond that. In any case, any gallery interested in my work, give me a call: 671032393!!
What have you been doing lately?
Well, getting a construction worker degree at Novicidado street academy where my new studio is going to be. And as soon as I’m done I’ll start working on a series of paintings about animals.
Any plans for the future you want to tell us about?
Like I said, the main thing is this place me and this other 4 artists are getting ready to be our studio in downtown Madrid. We are going to be making some noise soon.
And a project that hasn’t been proposed to you yet but you would like to do?
Work with a gallery? The Tercer asalto project looks good. I saw their catalog from last year this past weekend and I like the idea that they let you work in the street during some time with no restrictions in style or medium. Then there’s a festival in Morocco in august that maybe myself and sme others would like to go to. I just came back from there and I loved it. I can’t wait to get back there.
Any artists that you want to recommend?
Most of them are known to Subaquatica but there are Remed, Pelukas, Sins, Zosen, Ekta, Chimp, N8W Williams, Fefe, Tvrbo, Dem 666, Mosh, Debens, Rémon y el resto del 1980’s, Sean Mackaoui, SLK and the rest of the guys from Seville, the fantastic 5 from Noviciado that I already mentioned, la Made produzione from up north pop pop pop, Boula one and Edsik as DJ’s… and many more that nowadays with Fotolog, Myspace and all that are easy to spot
Entry Filed under: Artists
