Bleach

Bleach Interview

- Please tell us a little about yourself and your personal history.

B: I grew up in the suburbs of south London. I've always loved cartoons and I had these 3 or so issues of 2000ad that I'd stare at endlessly, they were just the odds and ends of a load of different stories but the ambiguity of that and the exquisitely dirty artwork fascinated me. Tagging was just something we did as kids skating round town from about '94-'95 onward. Quickly graffiti became more important to me than skating, but then I was always a crap skater. Me and a few mates started taking it more seriously and began hitting tracks, trains and legals. I was always easily bored and kept changing my tag and so also progressed from tags to dubs to pieces to wildstyle to 3D letters.

The techniques I developed from that translated naturally to doing characters and scenery, which was a much more diverse playground to inhabit. We went through a few different crew names too, the main one that stuck from then was BRS with Zeds, ROe, Fyans, Fang, Metro, Reka etc that came about later when we were doin free-parties, which was ideal for getting all over the place and painting amazing derelict sites. I started getting more and more commissions for murals, canvases, clothing designs, album covers and I began working for 'Signal Projects', doing murals all over town, which then lead to the 'TheyMadeMeDoIt' shows etc. I've been living and working with 'The Invisible Circus' in Bristol for the past couple of years and I've just moved back to London to immerse fully in my personal artwork again.

-Do you have any crew affiliations you want to mention?

B: Currently, BRS, THC, Third Decade, and the venerable 54.

- If you had to describe your current production work, what would you say?

B: If I had to, probably obscure, obtuse or absurd, but then why try to describe something in words when an image is clearly the appropriate medium of communication. Painting allows that almost instantaneous telegraphing of abstract ideas which is like a common ground where we can understand concepts on a not entirely conscious level, but sometimes images will just click with people and its not necessarily about the specifics of what was being said.

Because when it comes to the subjective human experience, it becomes all about 'qualia' and the psychological filters we've developed through innumerable hours of exponentially filtered experience, but we can put that in the public domain where we can feel that we're not just talking to ourselves, and we don't need any external approval or inordinate funding; it can be completely autonomous and unfettered.

- Are you still painting letters anymore or is purely production pieces now?

B: I haven’t painted any proper typographical pieces in a while now. It’s mostly figurative, spacial and expressive for me these days.

- Your work is full of dark imagery; where are you pulling these ideas from? Are there any movies or musicians that have influenced you?

B: Everyone and everything, the brain is like a big meaty sponge; it sucks up everything via osmosis and manifests in different ways when its relative to an idea. I suppose it’s a cohesion of all the crap that’s been absorbed, plants, animals, lasagna, books, music, like a dream or seeing something in your periphery or staring at the carpet for a really long time. I don't believe in independent origination, I love creativity, peoples’ endeavors are fascinating to read and relate to. Art, music, film and literature are all massive influences on me. But specifically, heres a few from the top of my endless list: Aphex twin, Basil Kirchin, Boards of Canada, Wong Shun Leung, David Lynch, Jodorowsky.......... it goes on and on.

- Have you ever wanted to do your own animation?

B: That’s what I wanted to do when I left school. I wanted to be an animator but I found it incredibly laborious. The process takes so long to complete, I'm easily distracted and when I have a new idea, I want to move on to the next thing. There’s a lot of continuing themes and motifs in my work, but I don't know how coherently they'll lend themselves to the narrative of the traditional medium. I'm currently working on a couple of different approaches to the comic format though, which i'm really enjoying.

- Describe your painting process for the complicated pieces.

B: Sometimes, I forget how to paint.

So it changes a lot from piece to piece. I'm not sure, I've never tried to describe it in words, its like the model of evolution I suppose, complexity from simplicity. Just a lot of simple tricks and nonsense really. It usually starts with a sketch or a note on an idea and just snowballs from there.

- Do you use extra materials to get the job done or is it purely with just a spraycan?

B: I'll use anything really, it’s just about creating an image, so why handicap yourself? It’s not like we're arm-wrestling or something. What’s the point of macho posturing; you know, like trying to do a piece with only one eye open or while hopping on one leg or balancing a bowl of terrapin infested custard on your ear.

There’s a lot of contention between genres, to me, its all just painting (good or bad) but these days, people want to create more and more sub-genres to box you into and they're using our tools to achieve that. I appreciate that in order for people to discuss art, you may need to use certain classifications, but the more you come up with these terms, the more generic your discussions become and the more your world diminishes. It’s weird to discredit someone because they use a brush or something surely the tool is the least important aspect that defines a piece of art. That said aerosol is an exquisitely diverse medium; the range of techniques you can get from them is obscene and seemingly limitless, we're always finding new effects we can achieve with it. I use straight aerosol about 99% of the time, barring massive areas of flat color of course, that would be proper laborious.

- Apart from London, where else have you been painting?

B: Only a very few places around europe: France, Italy and Spain mostly. I hope to expand on that in the near future.

- Any future plans you want to share with us?

B: I've got a few things coming up with 'Mutoid Waste' including a couple exhibits plus 'Trash city' at Glastonbury, 'Fuji Rock' festival in Japan and maybe 'Burning Man' in Nevada. Also i'll be collaborating on a load more productions and exhibitions with my brothers from '54', 'Third Decade' and 'End of the line' too.

Website : http://www.3lsewhere.net/

Written by Selph