Busk

Busk Interview

This man has been in the game for over 20 years and is still going strong. His styles have evolved and each new direction he takes justifies why he is one of the best graffiti artists the UK has to offer. " Back in 87-88, we were living in Essex, so we’d come to London and it wasn’t a very nice place; people got robbed and that was just part of the whole graffiti thing at the time. On top of that, I’ve been stabbed and I’ve been to prison, all because of graffiti and 24 years later, I still continue to paint."

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

B:  I write Busk and I started writing around the beginning of 1985.

My earliest memories are of us as young kids running around, tagging and scrawling on things.

- Tell us about this evolution in styles you have had over the years.

B: It’s been a natural progression. I started graffiti with a tag and then moved to doing pieces. After a while, I wanted to move away from the traditional generic graffiti and around 2000 I realized I could draw and paint well with other materials. Before, it was all about lettering and I really wanted to let my other, more artistic side flow into the graffiti. That’s when I started to experiment with more 3D shapes, more organic stuff and then I got into painting biomechanical stuff too. I then got to a point where I wanted to move away from doing letters and try out characters instead.

After I felt confident that I could do characters effectively, my style then evolved into the photo-realism thing. Now I’m doing a lot of portraits and for me, doing portraits of famous people was the true test of photo-realism. Anyone can paint a really good photo-realism portrait of a random person but trying to paint someone who is already well known is harder because you have to get it absolutely perfect. The two things I enjoy the most out of it are that I love to paint beautiful women and children. Simply because, if you can capture the beauty of a woman in a painting or the innocence of a child and convey that to the viewer and they can see it with their own eyes, then you have succeeded. If you can capture the essence of your subject in a painting, whether it’s a child or even a dog portrait, then the viewer can relate more to it.

- Any artists worth mentioning from the past 24 years who you feel that you have drawn inspiration from?

B: When I first started, the classics like the books Subway Art & Spraycan Art, as well as movies like Style Wars had huge effects on me. So I was first influenced by the New York writers, because that’s all we had for reference at the time. Then there were the people you saw for real around you at the time, like the Essex Rockerz, Urge, Range & Frame. Yeah, I remember having a look at the sketchbooks of the Essex Rockerz back in ’87 and being blown away by their stuff; they were so ahead of their time. Their books were phenomenal and they still are actually. In terms of my biomechanical work, I guess it definitely stems from my love of H.R. Giger and for some strange reason, I think that aesthetic comes naturally to me! My dark side comes out in those paintings; I don’t know if that’s necessarily a good thing.

- Describe your painting process for the photo-realism. Do you use extra materials to get the job done or is it purely with just a spraycan?

B: When I’m painting the realism stuff, I actually paint with the subject very close to the lens of the camera. Most portraits of people are done with the subject standing or sitting at least six feet away from the canvas or photograph. If I was to do it this way, then I’d lose a lot of the finer details in the faces, so I need my subjects really up close to the camera so I can pick up even the slightest differences in shading. In terms of actually painting it, I will use a variety of mediums like oils, spraypaints and acrylics; basically whatever it takes to get the job done. For commercial work, I have even projected the image onto the wall and traced it as it makes the job so much quicker.

Instead of spending hours trying to get that first outline perfect, you then can have more time to concentrate on the shading and textures. Some people might say that is cheating, but you have to have painting skills to finish the piece and when you are doing a commercial job, time is money and when you are spending five hours getting that outline perfect instead of five minutes, then that seems like a waste of time. If the wall is huge, then I might even use a grid; basically anything to make the job simpler.

- What about using extra materials like how the Maclaim crew from Germany do things; using masking tape or bits of cardboard to obscure part of the spray etc.?

B: Yeah, I would use any of these things. You will have your purists, who will say it’s cheating or whatever, but I’ve been here since the beginning so for me, it’s just been a natural progression.

If there is an easier way to get to the final outcome, then why not use it? Cutbacks are cool, but you can’t keep cutting back forever. Especially not on canvas, because if you put too much paint on the canvas then it will crack and have a negative effect on your work; you need to get it right the first time around.

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

B: I’ve painted all over Europe, in Belgium, Spain, Greece, France & more. I’ve also painted in South Africa in Johannesburg and Cape Town and I have to say that they are the most heavily covered places in graffiti that I have ever been to before! In J’burg, there is one street called Louis Botha Avenue and the walls go on for miles.

Nothing gets buffed there and you just have to ask permission and they are normally happy to let you paint their walls for them. I painted there with the PCP crew, people like Rasty and Dekor looked after me and in Cape Town, I painted with Faith47 and Toe. I have never painted in America, but have always wanted to and I have always wanted to visit Asia and go to places like Japan.

- Do you know much about the Japanese graffiti scene?

B: I’ve seen quite a lot of stuff. I have painted with Endec and I really rate his work. He has a really original style. Randomly, (this isn’t really linked to graffiti, but a Japanese artist) a couple years ago, an artist called Tomoaki Suzuki made a 60cm sculpture of me, made out of lime wood and it was so detailed and incredibly made. Also, last year, I did a project for Smap Smap (Fuji TV) with Xenz and Bleach.

- You have been based in London for the past 10 years and been writing graff for the past 20 years. How have you watched the UK scene change over the years?

B: It’s funny because there seems to be all this ‘new’ attention in the media towards graffiti from the younger kids but to be honest, when we were kids exactly the same thing was happening to us. Maybe nowadays, they are a little crazier as they carry weapons, but the concepts of rebellious youth haven’t changed. In terms of the paint nowadays, it has become so much better. It is designed with graffiti in mind and it does exactly what it says on the tin. In terms of people’s styles I have definitely seen changes and progression from most of my friends. But I also think it’s important to recognize the pioneers in certain fields too. People like Part2 or Part2ism was already rocking the photo-realism back in the early 90’s but I think most people didn’t get it at that time.

Artists like the Maclaim crew have now taken that field to the extreme, using new paint technology to achieve an ultra-realistic edge to their works. In general, I find it hard to judge other writers works because they may be really good at doing photo-realism stuff, but then you ask them to do a piece and they haven’t got a clue. They don’t know how to construct letters or make the words bend in a 3D fashion. Back in the day, if you wanted to be a king, you had to be up and be able to do everything. That’s how it worked for me and I have always wanted to be able to do it all. For me, repetition hurts; the idea of churning out the same stuff, week in week out for the past 20 years makes me feel sick. I would have given up a long time ago in that case. I get a different but equally good vibe from painting now as I did when I was a kid. I still feel the competition between my friends and I think that’s good as it keeps our standards of work high too.

- What direction do you want to take your art to in the future?

B: Not sure really, I’m constantly surprising myself at what I paint from one week to the next. It changes all the time and that excites me as I don’t know what I will be painting by this time next year. At the moment, I’m doing portraits, but I may go more into oil paintings as I don’t know how much longer my lungs are going to last!

- Any plans or projects you want to tell us about?

B: I’m doing a group show soon at Bazaart gallery and am working on a solo show for later this year.

Currently, I’m working on a lot of commissioned portraits and I have just finished a project for the new movie ‘Watchmen’, which will be great! It’s being shown at Leicester Square for the movie’s premiere where they will project our work onto the facade of the cinema.

Website : www.flickr.com/photos/thebusk

youtube : Watchmen Trailer

Written by Selph