Burst Bubbles (2001)
April 11th, 2009
“So sick n’ tired of people trying to burst our bubbles!!!”, Alert writes at the end of this bubble-style “Raws Alert” piece in Nottingham. Seems my aspirations were violent lime green and he was mainly dreaming of sausages.
Rare occasion when I timed myself painting – the evil bubble-burster character in the middle took me 12 mins.
Sinister SHOK (2001)
March 23rd, 2009
Grey Day (2001)
February 23rd, 2009
West London. I think everyone smashed it on this wall except me; I did mine way too small for some reason.
From left to right: it’s like the United Nations: a wicked Codak (USA), Dreph characters, Cruel (Australia), and then an organic “Raw” by me. The painterly mixed media background is Codak’s.
When Seak saw the “A” in my piece, he said, “I think that transparency will be the next big thing”. (sigh).
While we were there trying to get flicks – which was a nightmare with all the parked cars in the way – a local woman stopped to beef at us complaining that she’d have to look at it every day and she preferred the filthy wall that was there before. Welcome to Grey Britain.
Necronomicon joiner (2001)
February 16th, 2009
Painted live at Urban Games 2001, an extreme sports event in Clapham South London. We bring the horror extreme.
Detail shot HERE
Left: being a tall black geezer, we struck on the idea that Daps should do a “Creature from the Black Lagoon” piece – we laughed our bollocks off about this. I’m in the middle – “Sucked Into the Necronomicon”, then Alert leathered the competition with a Clapham Chainsaw Massacre piece with an exquisite Leatherface upholstery.
What a drama this one was.
By the time we arrived, the event was all systems go. There were about a hundred great painters there, incredible dancing, lunatics doing 50ft handstands through the air on motorbikes, just all kinds of full-on madness. We got a pretty weak spot right in the back corner of the event without many spectators but none of us were that much into the idea of painting live so it suited us fine. (“seen done, not done seen” to paraphrase Phase2 from way back).
I’d been painting the organic letters since ‘98 and had been into the horror and the video nasties since I was a kid but I’d never attempted anything like this before and I had no idea if it would work or not.
I wanted my painting to be just about the references so I asked Alert to sketch up an outline for me and he hit up an effortless “SHOKS” which I used as a skeleton to hang my ideas off. It was a spur of the moment idea so I had to do the whole thing from memory (that’s my excuse for how badly illustrated the movie images are!)
I’d reached that point where I was completely lost in the painting when Alert told me to look behind me and damn if half the event wasn’t behind us. A bloke came around the corner and literally fell on his arse saying “F*ckinghellf*ckinghellf*ckinghell…” over and over. He couldn’t get up. A big group of pubmen who’d obviously watched all the banned movies when they were kids hung out with us for most of the piece and were constantly bribing me with cans of lager in an attempt to get me to tell them what the all films were but I didn’t want to spoil it for them. Plus being English, I wasn’t about to turn down the free booze of course.
The crowd stayed with us until the end. I timed it to finish the piece just after nightfall, put the titles on the piece heart pounding, and just left.
The next day, I went back for photos and thought it would be cool to keep my piece, maybe show it somewhere else. The event organisers were moody as hell with me but I managed to arrange a van to rescue the wood panels that it was on and moved it over to Gettyimages where a guy I knew arranged for it to be displayed. I have no idea where it is now. I’ve been meaning to track it down for a while as it goes.
So that’s the brief story of the Necronomicon. Like all great horror films, even after dead and defeated, the monster may well rise again.
Necronomicon (2001)
February 13th, 2009
Friday the 13th competition
To enter, all you have to do is email me a list of all the movies referenced in this painting – contact link is top right. First person who gets them all correct wins. I’ll judge it soon and announce the winner. Watch this space.
The grand prize is a matching pair of my Greed x-ray prints. Click HERE to see the goodies.
The whole piece and the story behind it is HERE
UPDATE: despite my inbox exploding with entries, no one has won yet. Competition is open until I post a winner here!
Hello My Name Is … (shok) (2001)
February 6th, 2009
A manic depressive piece.
A hyperactive, boisterous “hello” made of thick-skinned characters including a pint-half-empty kind of person for the “h” and an aggy bouncer for the “o”.
Then it flips styles mid-painting like Picasso for a quiet, pensive (shok) at the end.
The characters are turning into arrows pushing forward in life with full positivity then the bouncer is trying to block at the end.
Cold War (2001)
February 4th, 2009“Weather or not / here we come”. Alert and I once again, staunching out our hangovers in a blizzard on New Years Day 2001.
I’d decided it would be a laugh to offer out anyone who was prepared to listen for a battle in Big Daddy magazine. I don’t know what was colder, the response or Alert’s chilly fill.
“Lookin’ out the win-dow…” I summoned the elements with transparent raindrop characters, electric storm clouds and wind and Alert dropped bitter chunks of icy funk that sting like a snowball in the face.
Contraflow (2001)
February 1st, 2009
Living life against the grain. A few choose their own path rather than following the herd.
SHOK-1 vs Seak – part 2 (2001)
January 30th, 2009
My classic oldschool B-boy VS Seak’s letter “A”.
This round, the traditional wins.
Three Against 1 (2001)
January 10th, 2009
This almost looks like it’s digital but no computers were involved at all. It was painted freehand from a biro thumbnail sketch.
