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.

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2 Comments / "Raw" Pieces, 2001, Characters, Letters, Productions, Walls

Stop talking shit and PAINT! (1994)

April 10th, 2009

In which I learned the pitfalls of a statement piece.

Although I wrote “if the cap fits” at the bottom of the piece, a lot of people evidently had a guilty conscience since they thought that I was directing it at them. Other people decided it must be directed at people they personally had a problem with. It should have been “If the crap fits”.

Moral of the story – step back once the fuse is lit!

The painting was in Nottingham – two windup chatterbox characters are talking shit, bombarding each other with turds, toilets and loo rolls.

Comes complete with flies. That’s scatalogical, captain.

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1 Comment / 1994, Characters, Walls

First SHOK-1 Spraypainting (1985)

April 9th, 2009

Although I started in the summer of 1984, all the streets I had done up until this point were with marker pens. Apart from a ton of ugly tags everywhere, I actually used to go out and do big pieces at night fully filled in with marker pen! Dry old Berol Magnum 800’s too with no ink flow at all. It would take forever.

This was the first time I got my hands on spraypaint. My friend got the cans so we ended up doing his design rather than mine after some arguing. It says “Crime”, painted in generic car paints from Halfords.

We started around 1am in the morning if I remember correctly, in the underpass of a park where we used to hang out causing trouble and generally having fun. There was some stress towards the end with a do-gooder who had to be warned off but in general it went well for a first ever attempt.

Although it looks like absolute dogshit now of course, I can’t even begin to explain the absolute excitement I felt at seeing this the next morning. It looked like it was hanging in mid air in front of the wall like a cartoon that had come to life, a filthy illusion. I didn’t own a camera for quite a while but someone took this picture for me.

It was the beginning of a long journey. Here I am at the time of writing – click to view

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2 Comments / 1985, Letters, Walls

Scratch SHOK (2000)

April 7th, 2009

Painted at Scratch club in King’s Cross, central London. Characters spell the letters. Ran out of paint towards the end hence the unfinished microphone etc.

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1 Comment / "SHOK" pieces, 2000, Characters, Letters, Walls

SHOKIN’! (1991)

March 28th, 2009

This was a bit of a seminal piece for me. This idea of making one big thing up out of lots of symbols and having a sort of disjointed narrative is the main idea that kept coming up for me over the years and eventually became my organic idea.

They say every artist has one main idea that they have to find and refine, I think this is probably mine. Looking at it now, it’s sort of like a really crude childish Rosenquist or Rauschenburg, not that I’d even heard of them at the time.

Anyway, from left to right: an “S” made from glass balls with characters and symbols in, an “H” made from spraycans and a joint, the “O” is a drunk character, his can of cheap alcohol makes the back of the “K”, then war comes and completes it in the shape of a gun (I’d just got back from Brooklyn), the “I” – peace is king in the form of a pack of rolling papers with a crown for the dot, and lastly an abstract “N” made from lots of smaller ones.

Also in this piece, you can see the light fading effects I developed having studied Scribla TCA’s fills back in the 80’s and my jellies – those are really early precursors of what would become the organic style.

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