Although Iv’e been updating the image galleries regularly, It’s been a while since Iv’e posted some news so here’s a round up of the new year so far…
The tail end of 2011 saw me complete a few interior commissions that can be viewed via the new ‘COMMISSIONS’ section on the site. Expect this section to grow as I hunt down images from a backlog of CD’s and USB sticks…
‘The Field’ offices in Shoreditch…
As far as personal work goes, Iv’e kicked off the year with a series of large character work…
The guys at Peach Properties were cool enough to let me paint the outside of their building on Redchurch street at the end of Brick Lane. I decided to paint comething a bit cheeky without going overboard as It’s a pretty public spot. A few passers by demanded nipples on the female character although I ended up playing it safe. Maybe I’ll paint an uncensored version on canvas at some point.
(Jasik to my left whose long been a fan of the emulsion fill)
And last but not least, a recent quick ‘OTAKU’ piece along side my buddy ‘Achoe’…
So here are several walls I’ve painted over the last month purely for fun and in an attempt to get some large scale stuff done before the short winter days really start to set in here in the UK.
On the 8th of October, Holloway held It’s 2nd ‘Meeting Of Styles’ event in London. Over the course of 2 days, a housing estate designated it’s walls to be painted by some of the best aerosol/graffiti artists from the UK and abroad. The walls will be on display for a year with any luck. For those interested in reading more about the event, visit Meeting of Styles
I was given a much larger and more horizontal sketch than anticipated and so ended up heavily adapting my initial sketch to work with the size. Iv’e always been inspired by the imagery from ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and have dropped a few walls of recent containing characters from the film/book. I decided to paint a giant Mad Hatter (looking a little bit worse for wear). I think artists are all a bit mad so his inclusion in my work is not without meaning. Here are a few progress shots courtesy of some passers by leading up to the finished piece…
Last week, I decided to paint a tall spot of Great Eastern street which is fast becoming and internationally recognised spot for artists to showcase their work. I made this one up as I went along, again picking out characters from Alice in Wonderland and creating a narrative of sorts whilst trying to work a decent composition. This is also an example of a recent painting technique Iv’e adopted requiring doing my best not to outline any shapes and instead relying on precise colour combinations to reflect forms…
The following day, I received a call to let me know that Dabs and Myla were in town from LA and had been given the front of ‘Mother/333′ club to paint alongside Remi/Rough and whether I wanted to paint one of the walls myself. I accepted the challenge and invited by friends and fellow crew mates Jasik and Ekons down to join me on our designated space. Below are the reults. Thanks to Mark from Hooked blog for some of the photos…
So I’ve just got back from a 2 week holiday in Tokyo, a city I’ve wanted to visit since the age of 12! I spent the first half of the holiday on an organised Manga and Anime tour set up by London based agency ‘Japan Journies’ who did an amazing job of showing us around the cities hottest spots for Japanese pop culture, including a visit to the Ghibli museum and Toei animation studio (responsible for Dragon Ball Z among other classics). During the second week of my trip I concentrated on more personal endeavours such as meeting and interviewing ‘Urotsukidoji’ creator Toshio Maeda, hanging out with Japanese Electronic legend Coppe (and painting in her studio!) and even managing to meet Michael Arias, the director of my all time favourite animated movie ‘Tekkonkinkreet’. I even managed to scrape in a last minute painting opportunity on my final day in the city thanks to the extremely talented artist ‘Ima One’ and his friend ‘GKQ’.
I have predictably hundreds of photos from this trip and so I’ve tried to crop them into 2 separate blog posts, the city and people I met and a the documentation of my last day’s painting with accompanying video…enjoy…
I was staying in the heart of the city in an area called ‘Shinjuku’, a very cool place that I’d compare to Soho in London given its focus on porn and interesting characters.
I saw lots of the things I expected to see whilst out shopping…Hello Kitty, dubious porn and models galore…
…but these dolls came as a surprise…very creepy/cool(?) and crazy expensive….
One of the highlights of my trip was getting to meet manga artist Toshio Maeda, the man behind the infamous Urotsukidoji saga and pioneer of the ‘erotic horror’ manga genre from Japan. Toshio was kind enough to invite myself and British artist ‘Dr.Dog’ to his flat where we met his wife, had some dinner, talked and looked through a whole heap of his original artwork, some of which I HAD to end up purchasing…
I also managed to film and interview with Toshio that should will be up shortly. Anyone interested in contacting Toshio regarding exhibiting or sales enquiries can do so via his recently launched website.
Through my friend Aya, I was lucky enough to hang out with legendary Tokyo based music producer Coppe’ who has the most amazing studio I’ve ever seen. The whole place is adorned with Disney goods, mostly Mickey Mouse related items…
As the night (and alcohol) progessed we decided it would be cool to paint on some of her walls. Given the fact that she’s a Mickey nut, I though it appropriate to drop the following…
I had a busy fume filled weekend and thought I’d share the results. On Saturday I painted at the ‘Whitecross street Party’ for the 2nd year running, deciding to decorate the 8 x 8ft space provided with a homage of sorts to Betty Boop, or at least her skull mounted on an ice cream cone (It makes sense to me!)
I was lucky enough to turn up early and find a great spot next to my good friend ‘DEP’. We’ve painted together a few times now and think our styles compliment each other pretty well…I look forward to more collaborations in the future.
Sunday started early with a hired car down to Ashford,Kent alongside JASIK,GFUNK and PUNISH for fellow crew member ATCH’s ‘CREATE’ graffiti jam. 90minutes of Magic FM later we arrived to find a spot worth every 80’s power ballad.
I decided to drop one of my ‘OTAKU’ pieces, bringing 2 sketches with me with a plan to combine elements of both into the piece.
It’s not often I remember to document the process of painting and although this is far from a detailed analysis, here’s my initial outline on the wall…
Jasik sketch up…
Gfunk sketch up
A cricket.
Colouring in big stylised letters...
Here’s one I made earlier…
Our crew’s finished pieces, from left to right – ATCH – OTAKU – JASIK – GFUNK
Thanks to ATCH for securing a great spot and hosting a great jam (not to mention pulling off his best piece in my opinion). Shouts to all in attendance. Looking forward to the next one…
So this was an exciting project…I was contacted by Chris Dawson at The Field to create the artwork for an interior in Soho to be used for the launch of the new game, ‘Child of Eden’ for the Kinect/Xbox 360. The game is a wireless experience (you use nothing but your body to control the online play), fully immersing the player into a trippy neon wonderland of exploration and discovery and the brief was to create a venue where people would feel like they were walking into a subversive extension of that world. The paintings were all accurately copied from key scenes from the game that I was delivered. Very different to my usual work and a great exercise in technical proficiency.
Here’s a trailer for the game for an idea of the artwork I was referencing…
The customised space in Soho…34-35 Dean Street, London, W1D 4PR. Open to the public from the 5th – 22nd June.
And the artwork…10 days of fumes, blood, sweat and donuts….
A couple of days into the job, we had a visit from the talent at torpedofactoryfilms who put this little promo vid together documenting the tranformation of the space and a timelapse of me painting the wall above.
Hand painted logos using acrylic…no easy feat…
A Mr Jonathon Ross passed by during the private view to test his jedi powers…
