Sagem interview [FR]

Mon blase est SAGEM, je suis originaire de l’ouest de la France, j’ai habité plusieurs villes et actuellement je vis sur Paris depuis quelques années  ! Que ce soit en région parisienne, en France où dans le monde je suis friand de découverte, d’exploration, ahah. L’essentiel pour ma propre personne, quand je n’hiberne pas, est d’être confronté à l’inconnu, être un maximum dans un esprit d’aventure.

J’ai découvert la peinture et le milieu du graff à mon adolescence avec ma bande de potes, c’est une activité très prenante et passionnante, pour la plupart d’entre nous c’est encore notre occupation première  !

Comment définirais-tu ton style ?

J’essaye dans mes peintures et dans mes créations  en général, quelles qu’elles soient, de travailler à partir  d’éléments géométriques, de  symétries,  à partir de plans, j’essaye de plus en plus de jouer avec les textures, avec les lumières. Dans le processus,  j’aimerais  penser mon graffiti comme l’on penserait  un plan de cinéma, tout en gardant la typographie comme élément principal de notre scène. Enfin, ça c’est l’idée, dans la réalité  c’est pas  encore aussi élaboré  ahah.

Je ne suis pas encore au point entre mon désir de tout expérimenter et la direction que je souhaite donner à mes créations.  J’aimerais  bien accentuer l’impression de réalisme dans mes peintures, mais aussi le contraster avec  davantage  d’ abstrait,  d’illustration..

Je pense que mon style mûri et se transforme de jour en jour, je suis encore dans une face de recherche et d’exploration. Bien que progressivement des choses s’ancrent dans mon processus de création.

Une couleur préférée ?

Ahah,  ce n’est pas vraiment une  couleur mais plutôt  une nuance, je porte beaucoup d’attention et d’attirance pour le noir et sa multitude de variantes. Bon, on ne va pas se mentir, ce n’est pas la « couleur » la  plus  gaie, et  elle est bien souvent attribuée  à la dépression, la folie,  etc..  Mais psychologiquement,  pas d’inquiétude, je crois que tout va bien pour moi !

J’aime fort d’autres couleurs plus vivantes comme  certains bleus  : turquoise, pétrole,paon..  ou comme  certains rouges:  pourpre, carmin,  terracota..  

J’en ai profiter pour regarder les références, je pourrai continuer pour chaque autre groupe de couleur, mais je vais vous en épargner.

Le noir est mon petit préf !

On espère tous pouvoir bouger au delà de 10km rapidement, si tu pouvais aller peindre n’importe où dans le monde, où rêverais tu d’aller ?

Le choix est  difficile, car  il me semble n’avoir encore rien vu du monde qui nous  entoure..  Mais  j’aimerais  vraiment peindre au  Maghreb,  en Asie. La réponse est vaste, mais principalement dans des lieux ou la nature occupe un espace plus important que les constructions humaines, j’aime bien l’ambiance que cela peut  créer.   J’aimerai  trouver quelques endroits sympa ou y poser ma griffe !

Quoi qu’il en soit je suis curieux et un peu impatient de découvrir n’importe quel pays, n’importe quelles petites ou grandes  villes..  Rien à voir, mais je pense prochainement m’installer à  Barcelone, et  niveau graffiti ils sont me paraît bien loti. Je devrais bien m’y amuser !

Et pour terminer peux-tu nous dire ce que tu écoutes ou lis en ce moment ?

Ahah, en ce moment j’écoute pas mal l’album de SCH qui est sorti il y a peu, et si je devais sélectionner un morceau je sélectionnerai celui avec le JUL, Mode Akimbo je clic pas mal sur le replay !  Après c’est très éphémère, dans quelques jours ce sera un autre artiste.

Je te donne par la même occasion le dernier livre qui m’a marqué même si je dois avouer que je lis un peu moins ces temps ci, C’est «  les fils conducteurs  » de Guillaume Poix, une histoire qui se passe dans une décharge, au Ghana.

Retrouvez SAGEM sur Insta.

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0___________o_ portrait

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Your Instagram page is not very explicit… what is your artist name?
My artist name is ‘eye’.
My graffiti hasn’t ever really been legible. So I decided on a name that looked kind of similar to pieces I paint. Rather than the word itself. Also the user name ‘eye’ is taken.

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Can you present yourself? Where did it all begin?
I’m from Accrington a town in the UK. I’ve been into being creative since I was young. My first experience with graffiti was tagging my actual name all over my school with a friend. That was also the first time I got caught. I never really took graffiti seriously until he showed me local spot with productions and pieces from local artists like Ibok, Spaf, Pryme, Crie, Gunk. I knew I liked graff at that point, had messed about copying stuff from graffiti creator and watched a load of videos on YouTube about graff. But after seeing these pieces I was mind blown, there was something different about the way they did it. It was alien & didn’t seem to follow the rules. I had never really thought about how far writing your name could be pushed in different directions. Been hooked since then onwards really.

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How can you define your style, what inspires you?
I think my style is true to graffiti in the way that it abstractly resembles type. Like how a super complex wildstyle is barely legible but you can recognize who painted it by the forms they create. I don’t worry about the word too much, as-long as your making a mark that’s recognizable as your own then I don’t think it matters. I rarely plan out what I’m going to paint In too much detail. Usually I’ll have some imagery in mind but I find it fun to be expressive and in the moment. I take inspiration from art, design, film, music anything really it depends on what I’m into and how I’m feeling at the time. I always find myself coming back to the graffiti I grew up looking at from the early to mid 2000’s though.

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We all hope that traveling will be allowed in the next few months. If you could explore and paint anywhere in the world, where would you go and why ?
I’d love to travel to New York for obvious reasons. Although I think that’s just a dream for now due to having mouths to feed lol. I think if I could muster up the courage to paint outside of Blackburn more often I’d be happy :)

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> Discover more from eye on instagram

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108 interview

The artists of my generation were used to paint for free anywhere and when we started to be asked to paint for money and payed flights… That was an amazing time! Now it has changed completely, at that time I was 25, now I’m 42 so I don’t have the same energy. From my point of view festivals aren’t doing Street Art anymore. Street Art for me is when you go out and you do anything you feel, you find a place you like, you go with your friends and paint.
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Lo Milo profile


– Lo Milo, when, and what, was your first introduction to graffiti?
Lo Milo
: It started in Bosnia more than ten years ago when I painted my first graffiti in my fathers’ garage. A low skilled piece ‘BOMB’ happened on the side wall. The front one was reserved for the letters ‘QUIT’. Soon I had a classic graffiti ‘crew’, which included just two of us and we filled our town with RFA (ready for action) bombs and tags, he he.

– How can you define your style? What does inspire you?
Lo Milo
: I am inspired by minimalism, researching the quality of medium itself, digital invasion and decomposition. My works are usually site specific, defined by materials and colors I have (mostly recycling) as well as by the surroundings with which I try to establish an optical relation. I like the communication between architecture and my additions into it, through optically changing 3D space to 2D.


– If you could explore and paint anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
Lo Milo
: Probably somewhere to South America. I can imagine my pieces influenced by Latino cultures and their specific environment.

– You live in Slovenia. Which artists from Slovenia you like or could point out?
Lo Milo
: Regarding the topic, I would mention street artists Amor and Whem from Ljubljana as ones with the freshest approach and dedication to free hand drawing and writing.

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– What do you do when you’re not painting outside?
Lo Milo
: I am interested in fine arts and activism as well. If it is not chasing money, I am completely in this ‘artivistic’ balloon.

More photos on ekosystem.org and Instagram.

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M like Monolog

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How did it all begin?
Monolog: It started in
2001 when I made my first bombing like classic graffiti piece. Later on I started to use also brushes instead of spray cans and my approach to
work was more experimental. I was working with a letter “M” which comes
out from my tag or nickname Monolog.
I made many geometric variations of it. Nowadays, I use only spray cans and letter “M” by the time is not visible anymore. It disappeared
slowly, but my style is still very well recognizable.

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How can you define your style?
M: When I am
thinking about it, maybe it comes from my studies. I was studying
technical engineering, that’s why my works are based on geometric shapes and I am trying to be precise.

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What does inspire me?
M: I think it’s not about inspiration, it is just relish and pleasure from doing it.
Which artists from Slovakia you like or could point out?
For example:
https://www.instagram.com/bzsstagram/
http://mrirk.tumblr.com/
Thank you for your interest and space on your website.

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The Art of Rebellion IV – interview

Christian Hundertmark aka C100 author of The Art of Rebellion books shared a few words with us 13 years after the 1st AOR book.

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– When you wrote the 1st Art Of Rebellion in 2004, the goal was to
present that new post-hip-hop-graffiti scene also known as street-art.
What is “Art of Rebellion 4” about ?

In general it’s the same topic as the previous ones: introducing street art / graffiti to a wider audience. But this time with a new approach: Instead of just documenting / introducing the most interesting new works I asked each artist to select his most favorite work and write a short text why they had chosen the particular piece. This led to really interesting results which gives the reader a new insight on each artists work concept.

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– According to you what are the biggest changes the urban-art scene have experienced last decade ?

In my personal humble opinion I’d say that street art made a very
successful step in terms of attracting recognition from people outside
the scene which had both positive and negative aspects. I mean nowadays everyone knows what street art is…! One one hand that’s a great development as many artists got the chance to step into the contemporary art world, doing big art shows in galleries and can make a good living out of it etc., which I think is nice as it proofs that this young art form got the respect it definitely deserved. On the other hand it got a bit predictable, some artists works got very hyped even though their work weren’t very inventive and more or less unambitious.The use of stereotypes seemed like there was a ultimate street art cook recipe: Some drips here, some sampling of pop art there, some punk attitude and there you have the street artist the audience expect to be the next Banksy…. which I think is a bit lame.Still in general I think the quality of the works made a huge step!

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– When I compare the photos of the 1st AOR and the new one, what I notice is that nowadays many artworks are huge and legal. Nowadays the
urban-scene seems to be run mainly by professionals. Is the title “Art
of Rebellion” still accurate ? And has the street-art scene been really rebellious one day ?

Yes, this is a justified question and I think if it wasn’t a series considering another title would make sense :) but if you start form the basis each artist featured has street credibility and authenticity. Most of them still work in the streets illegally which could be contemplated as a rebellious act in a way, too. Still, I’m aware that „real" rebellion is connected to much more radical acting but I think the title is a great wordplay which makes totally sense in this context of art. Also I’d like to add that by asking the artists for their most favorite artwork they ever did anything would have been possible. And this is what happened in the end. This book is more like an opener for the viewer to get into the whole work portfolio of each featured artist. I.e. Honets feature (both photo & text), which is one of my favorites, it’s essential that you know both what his current works AND his background from day one. I’m really happy that this concept worked out so good.

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– In the book we can see people work that were in the previous books, but also new artists. Can you tell us a few names of people you discovered recently and enjoy the work ? (they don’t need to be in AOR4)

I discovered the work of Hayden Kays, Hot Tea, Maser and Mobstr during the process. Even though others maybe knew their works before I got into their art more or less by chance and I’m really happy to have them in the book!

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– Like many of us I like good punchlines and slogans written on walls or on stickers. Under your C100 alias, you did excellent “Cash rules ruins everything around me” posters. That was an instant-classic to me. But I
discovered in AOR4 that crazy story about the Wu-tang trying to sell
copies of your work claiming it was an original work from Banksy. Could you sum-up this unbelievable story ?

Haha, yes to say it in one sentence: Wutang tried to fool the internet by telling that „The Cash ruins everything around me“ poster was done by Banksy and selling it as a limited screen print for 100$ as a Wutang/Banksy collab – and I found out about it! As
everyone knows, if you have Banksy involved the attention and value of a print will rise exorbitantly and very fast hence it’s much easier to sell…. The problem was that someone send me the link to that post on the Wu Disciples Blog and I found out about this hoax. In the very beginning the screenprint also had a Banksy Logo on it! Unfortunately I didn’t make a screenshot of this. After a few emails back and forth with Wu Disciples manager we agreed to make a screenprints with the original artist (me) and donate the earned money to “Doctors without Borders” but even though I organised everything at one point I didn’t got any more replies and it came to nothing. Luckily the internet doesn’t forget, so did I :) and when working on the book I found almost all links that proof the truth of this unbelievable story.

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– Do you expect to do an “Art of Rebellion 5” one day ?

I think it’s the same answer like for the last 4 books: Maybe, …we’ll see what happens. But I can imagine that this can happen, for now I’m happy with the latest result :)
Thanks for the interview!

The Art of Rebellion #4
216 pages – English- ISBN: 978-3-939566-49-6
About 35€ – Available at Stylefile

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ROWDY interview

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I took advantage of the release of Get Rowdy by Rowdy from Bristol to ask him a few questions about his book, his work and his city.

– Can you present yourself? How did it all begin?

Well attached is the 1st actual Rowdy piece I did in Bristol in 1992 taken from someone’s (graffarty) instagram . I had different tags from 87 up until this point.

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– Get Rowdy book is about your works from the last 7 years. You started in the late eighties. With such a long carrier, haven’t you been tempted to show your earlier works?

Of course it would be nice to show earlier work, much of which was actually destroyed due to a studio fire back in 2010. I was looking for narrative and wanted to show where my head is currently at, in terms of being a creative. 

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Has it been difficult to select the photos ?

It’s frustrating when you have done a cool piece and the photo’s don’t quite cut it. I think for this reason it was absolutely integral for the book to have Alex Ellison on board his work is mainly focused around London being the modern graffiti archivist he is very meticulous in his endeavors and captures a phenomenal amount of writers transient work and his night shots are stunning.

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– Cats, rats and birds are popular animals on the walls. Do you remember how your obsession with crocodile started ?

Playing & painting in Quarries was the catalyst, dwelling in the underground space gets you thinking about creatures like fossils and crocodiles. Given the fact these vast clearances of the land pave the way for our roads and Cities helped me focus on the Ancient V Modern. Initially I decided to paint various creatures on some of the large remaining boulders one of the 1st being a Crocodile circa 2003. I went on to make several installations in different quarries during the mid naughties and not long after this I took the Croc to the streets.There were already cats like La Mano and Pez doing the logo bombing thing not to mention Keith Haring way back plus characters had always been a big part of my repertoire during my graff years. I just wanted to connect with a different audience whilst retaining a fairly hardcore graffiti aesthetic what’s more the quarry work wasn’t getting the attention of the usual graff watchers and I liked this, it was a great time as you know so much was happening and practitioners were pushing our beloved art form in all kinds of directions back then, and I didn’t feel to cynical about it as I do sometimes these days.

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– You collaborate very often with friends like Sweet toof or Goldpeg. What do you like most, painting alone or with other people?

The shared experience of being wild and having fun is such a buzz. It helps set you free from the mental torment you have to endure on your own as an artist in say the studio or the business world. The crew helps validate each others work.On the other hand when alone there is the chance to really get in the zone see how far you can push things, this particularly applies to my abstract work.

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– In the book you present some abstract works I didn’t know from you. This is really different than your graffiti work. Have you ever thought about painting such pieces outside?

On a couple of occasions this work has appeared outdoors and maybe I will revisit that idea again at some point ultimately I just wanted to keep something back for myself that couldn’t so easily be ripped,buffed or written over. To have some longevity in the contemporary art world as well as in peoples homes, slightly more conventional I guess but there again try being an abstract artist in Britain?

I’m also interested in some of the parallels between wildstyle graffiti and abstract art, many don’t like their street art too complicated so in a sense it provides a nice counter balance to my Croc work.

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– Bristol graffiti scene has always been known worldwide thanks to 3D featured in Spray Can art book, and of course more recently because of Banksy.
According to you has all this attention to Bristol graffiti scene been a good thing ?
(Little story, a colleague who has absolutely no particular interest in graffiti or graphic design went to Bristol last summer. He told me the best thing about his holidays was the Bristol street-art tour he paid…)

Bristol has a fantastic history and it’s a shame 3D’s pieces never got the same Banksy heritage status but how could they given the times, I guess for me that’s why the book is a form of preservation. Jon Nation who works on some of the tours is undoubtedly a recommendation as far as I’m concerned as he’s a proper Bristolian and been around for time and a big supporter to all concerned. So yeah I would suggest it’s well worth a visit and the pound is now weaker due to Brexit. There are types trying to regulate our scene having never come from an Art/ Graffiti background offering up walls that are looking some what watered down or trying to hard in their approach . Generally it’s a good mix here but as property prices rocket we need more Artist lead projects if we want credible art in the City and hope the vandals don’t get caught going about their activity.

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– If you could explore and paint anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

I’ve still not been to Lisbon, I think a spell in Canada could be nice. Many of my abstract works are a form of travel, fictional and imagined locations I’ve never been to like Franz Kafka’s vivid description of an America he never visited.

– What do you do when you’re not painting?

Think about painting.

www.getrowdy.info/

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Dreyk the Pirate – Interview

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– Can you present yourself? How did it all begin? Did you write letters before painting pirates?
Hello
everyone, i work under the name of Dreyk the Pirate and i’m living in
sunny Athens – Greece, working as a designer / illustrator mostly on magazines. It all begun in the late 90’s, with a couple of friends when I started spraying my crew’s name “BTS”. I was always the one from the crew, who drew a character beside BTS. My characters were kinda “comic-realistic” style so after a while i was bored of making shades. My Graphic Design studies and stuff through magazines, books and ekosystem.org, influenced me and in 2004 I started drawing in streets a navy motif. Boats, mermaids, squids, pirates, anything from sea imaginary.
The last years I was using mostly blue and white but since the beginning of 2016, orange replaced blue.

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– Your characters look more like fishermen or very nice pirates than actual dangerous pirates. What attracts you to pirates ?
I draw mostly fat sailors nowadays and yeah, they look pretty far from dangerous. Actually, everything i draw looks childish and cute.

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Dreyk the Pirate and
Antios


– You painted lately with Antios. Do you enjoy painting with other artists?
Of course, i always enjoy painting with friends and other artists.

– You paint most of the time in abandoned house in broad daylight in
Athens streets. Is Athens as open as it seems to street painting?
Well, that’s the thing about Athens… Athens is full with old abandoned houses, and i prefer that because (almost) no one gives a shit. Also I love the textures of old walls. So, the reason i prefer doing it in broad daylight, is that i love connecting with the people passing by or coming close to see what I’m painting. It makes me feel great seeing smiles on their faces. I believe, a walk through the center of Athens will convince everybody how open it is.  

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You used to paint with spraycans, but on your more recent works you use brushes. What are your preferred tool ?  And do you have the feeling people are less “scared” when they see people with brushes than with spraycans ?

Yes, let’s say, for Greek people is less “scary” if they see someone painting in streets with brushes and rollers. They have a “thing” when they see spraycans, plus, emulsion paint is much cheaper than spraycans.

– Which artists from Athens you like or could point out?
I could say my favorite by far is Vasilis Markosian a.k.a. IMPE.

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Dreyk the Pirate and Antios

– If you could explore and paint anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
Every place in the world has its magic, but if i have to choose then it would be Asian countries.

– What do you do when you’re not painting?
I love drinking cold coffee with my girl, watching lots of movies indoors, listening music, and playing with my black cat.

> Dreyk the Pirate on Instagram, Flickr and fb

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The Toaster interview

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When did you start the Toaster project? Is the Toaster a collective or a single person?
Myself and two others started the Toaster project on New Years Eve, 1998. We put our first stickers up the next day, January 1st 1999.
For the last 2 years it’s been just me doing it. It was a naturally progression as I was always the one doing most of the painting and art anyway. We were all cool with the decision.

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Did you write letters before starting the Toaster project?
I wrote ‘traditional’ graffiti from 1985 when I was a young kid. I watched the film Style Wars and saw the book Subway Art and it essentially changed my life overnight. I carried on painting graffiti until 1997 but gradually I was deciding I wanted a change of direction. I still loved getting up but wanted to be more conceptual and to stimulate more questions from the public as well as other writers.

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What keeps you still painting? Can you ever feel tired of the Toaster project? Do you see yourself still doing it in 5 or 10 years?
I’ve honestly never got bored of the Toaster image I paint. Rather than it being restrictive painting the same thing I found the initial repetition quite satisfying. Once the image was up in many cities across the world and people knew about it, there was a natural progression for me to deconstruct it and paint pieces with abstracted elements of the Toaster. People still see the Toaster within these pieces but it’s also a way of me going full circle back to my graffiti roots. I’m painting walls that feel like graffiti pieces, with shadow, bold colours, graphic lines and shapes forming letters but it’s all done with me using parts of the Toaster.
I’ve got plenty of ideas to push these pieces further, to go more complex or strip them back to be more minimal so yes I’ll defiantly be painting the Toaster in 20 years let alone 5 or 10 years! I’ve been doing it for 17 years already so why not.

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You painted several times with Zime from Eindhoven. Do you frequently collaborate with other artists?
I try and find a balance between painting in isolation and painting collaborative walls. You can learn a lot from both. I often take an element of my last wall and inject it into my next wall. It’s a natural timeline and progression. I’ve painted with Zime a lot the last 10 years. Firstly he’s a good friend but I also respect him as an artist. He’s very precise in his technique. He also likes using only 2 or 3 colours and I enjoy having to adapt my piece to complement his. I’ve also painted walls with Will Barras, Sektie, Space3, Erosie and Roa to name but a few. Also we organised a big Toaster show in London in 2009 with 15 artists. Each painted a Toaster collaboration piece with me and the other Toaster guys. That was sweet.

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In the early 00’s in France there was someone named “Krisprolls” who also painted toasters. Do you know him or his work? What is the deal with Toasters?
I don’t know the Krisprolls guy personally but yes I saw his work years ago. Sometimes people would email me asking if it was me but I only paint the one type of Toaster!
When us 3 guys started the Toaster project it’s wasn’t because we were really obsessed with an electrical toaster! We simply wanted an image to get up on the streets. It had to be already recognizable so the public asked ‘why?’ not ‘what is it?’. Also we thought it would be cryptic to put the image of a household object on the streets. It would seem slightly bizarre and get folks asking questions. Finally we choose the Toaster image as an insular concept. Like I said at the start of the interview we came up with it on New Years Eve 1998. We were at a house party but as ever we found ourselves away from the main party. We always hung out in the kitchen. Yes it is where the fridge is which means we are nearer the beer, but also we didn’t fit in so much with the main party. We wanted to talk about graffiti in the kitchen while others wanted to dance in the living room. So we thought ‘let’s choose a kitchen object to represent us’! I loved the idea then and love still getting it out there nearly two decades later.

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Muretz interview

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Can you present yourself? How did it all begin Muretz?
I am from Sao Paulo, Brazil, and I’ve been working as an artist for many years, here and in the UK mainly. I am quite new to graffiti, been painting for about 3 years only. I began doing it just for fun, and seeing the reaction from people to my work got me addicted to it. I like to express myself with my art and found in graffiti a great way of doing so.

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You live in Sao Paulo, you work doesn’t seem to be influenced by the vivid local scene. Could you tell us what are you main influences?
Well I think the local scene is mainly about tagging and putting an art piece out there just for the fun or beauty of it. But I always thought street art is about communication, sending a message to the people out there and few local artists do that in their work, so I decided taking that path. My influences are mainly outside of the graffiti world, they go back to when I was a children’s book illustrator. I am also a big fan of TV cartoons, so a lot of my inspiration comes from that I suppose.

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One of your iconic image is the red and blue 3D glasses. Do you have a childhood memory of these glasses like a 3D movie maybe?
I keep a pair of those glasses at home as a decoration piece and one day I thought about doing something about it. I thought it would be interesting to put it out there and have done a few versions of it. People seem to have fun with that so yeah, I guess its one of my favourites.

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If you could explore and paint anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
I want to go to the Middle East. I have never been there but I know it would be a great place to spread my art.

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Muretz website + instagram.

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Angel Toren quick portrait

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-Please, tell me a few words about yourself.
-My name is angeltoren. I’m from Murcia in Spain. I discovered graffiti in 2003, but I started doing my first pieces in 2007.

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-What does inspire you?
-I am inspired by linear artists typerfaces
and architects. “Hans Vredeman de Vries” is one of the artists in my
current job references (fullines) apart from futuristic retro style.

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– Do you enjoy painting with other artists?
-I love painting with my colleagues and everyone who is willing to paint a mural.

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-What do you do when you’re not painting?
-I work in a company making 3D designs for processing stone and when I do not work prepare my next designs for my walls.

Angel Toren on instagram and on ekosystem.

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