Sickboy |
|||
 |
Interview with Sickboy- Some of our readers in Japan may not know you so please tell us who you are and what you do.
|
||
|
- Let’s get the obvious question out of the way; tell us about this temple image that you became well-known for doing. What does it represent to you? S: A Temple is a place that does not necessarily have to have an association with religion. It is a place for contemplation and finding yourself. I got the idea from looking at Hundertwasser’s work; where he used a lot of minarettes. I went to Spain when I was still writing Phet but had the Sickboy concept in my mind. I saw a lot of street logo-type stuff by artists like Le Mano, who I think is one of the kings of this. I started to draw in my sketchbook, Gaudi’s buildings and added bits and pieces to it in a very rough style. Before I knew it, I had created the first template of the Temple. I brought back some paint on the plane (back in the day, when you could still do that!) and the only colours I had were red and yellow. |
||
|
|||
| When I got back to the UK, I went out and started to draw this new thing on a bin, on walls and doors and realized through colour-theory that the red and yellow combination was a good one as they make people happy. Also, the bins in Bristol are red so I smashed that for 5 years, constantly painting these bins that could be taken around the corner, painted and then put back on the streets. This was something that you can’t do with walls obviously!
Are you still affiliated with any crews, either in London or back in Bristol?
S: Yes, the AAGH crew is still going. It stands for 'Ave A Go Heroes and was created in Bristol. It was based on AN BRITISH WAY OF DESCRIBING people who didn't necessarily like graffiti, associated with the Law or Establishment, who might grab you and stop you painting. That particular crew name applied quite well to what we were doing. We were more of a leftfield crew; who did not want to concentrate purely on letter-based pieces. We wanted to mix it up with characters and play around more with the entire wall. It was started by myself and a writer called Dr. Dog, who is actually based in Japan right now. We were considered outcasts in a way, because we preferred to paint weird things liek, he would paint the Queen Mother's performing sex acts and generally pieces thatwould be quite offkey and toy-style. |
|||
|
- Yeah you guys definitely have an outrageous style!
S: 'm not saying that we were one of the first to do this but we definitely were championing this almost 'childish' style of letter-writing. Our name kinda describes exactly what it is all about; just having a go and trying anything out, even if it looks crazy and bizarre. Those were the best years for me, in terms of creativity, because I could do anything I wanted and just experiment all the time.
|
||
 |
- Do you have a fine art background?
Yes, I did a course in Visual Communication. So it was graphic design and fine art. Technically, I wasn’t a fine artist but you could take your influences from anyhwre, so I would choose other artists like Picasso, Hundertwasser and architectural artists like Gaudi. I think that these influences also crept into my graffiti side of things too.
- Fast forward to the present day; Are you more about getting your Temple up on the streets or have you gone back to your roots in letter-based graffiti?
S: It’s been a weird couple of years. When I first started doing the temple thing in 2000, I felt that I was doing something new and not many other people were doing it. |
||
 |
But as more and more people started to do it and it became more mainstream, I felt that the Temple had less and less power. I wanted to re-look at the roots of what I did (the letter pieces) and bring that back out in my work. I don’t like to be typecasted as the guy who only does ‘that Temple’ because I do have a 15 year love affair with graffiti and the letterform. The good thing about going back to letters is that it has nothing to do with my career as a fine artist, so it allows me to escape and not let me feel so tied down to the Temple so much.
- OK, time for a Type-based question, has England got its own graffiti-style of handwriting?
S: I personally think that we probably have a weaker handstyle than other countries, but maybe that’s because I’m stuck in the middle of it; maybe it’s just because you always think that the ‘grass is always greener'. I think that the rest of the country is also different to London. Other places in the UK may have more of a Euro-style of writing whereas London is more hardcore and aggressive. In London, there is a lot of angular, chrome-based tagging. The style may not be that good but they are still up all over London. Guys who have really great handstyles include PETRO, HEFS & SIEGE. |
||
|
They bring a certain funk to the table when they write and I think that this is what the European guys do really well. I like what VEG grew and 1000 3.P.V and the rest of the guys are doing tag wise in london. Each letter is equally spaced out, its got funk and easy to read. Its nice in London, you will get writers from all over the world like TWIST from San Francisco & HORFE from Paris, gettting up on the doors and shutters of certain areas of the city. Each door/shutter becomes a piece of history and it really fucks me off when these archives are destroyed by either the government buffing them or by writers covering it up it with their own work. These bits of history don’t happen in other parts of the UK so they should be treasured more. |
||
 |
|||
S: I didn’t want to be associated with the gallery thing because it was growing at a really quick rate and I don’t like waves that grow really big and then spectacularly crash. I have always said to myself that I wanted to be here for the long ride and not crash and burn too early. So the ‘Stay Free’ exhibition in 2009 was entirely off my own back and I felt inspired that it had to be better than all the other gallery shows. This has freed me up a lot and allowed me to fully control everything I do. I have witnessed the demise of a couple galleries in the London area in the past couple years due to the recession and it has been nice to not have to be worried by things like that. The 3-hour show I did recently, ‘Logo Pop’ was a really nice change too from the normal format of shows, because it was only on for a very limited period of time and you either were there and saw it or you had to catch it on the internet instead in the form of pictures. |
|||
 |
- Your Fine Art work seems to be getting more and more detailed, almost obsessive looking and full of mad ideas.
S: Yeah, I want people to really study my paintings and notice all the little things, like the semiotics and the symbology of the drawings. I never set out to do one big statement, I have always wanted to put my ‘vibe’ onto the painting. I like using Pop-Art and Op-Art elements along with Expressionist marks. (maybe it should be called Pop/Op-Art Expressionism!) When I first start a canvas, the whole thing is free-styled and I begin with a spraycan and fat cap to get a really loose shape down. Then I work into it and cut things out; remove things I don’t need and refine the shapes. Then the character & colours are added on top of that, I can then add symbols and text. |
||
 |
- Any future plans you can reveal to us?
S: On the 6th February, I am touring the ‘Logo Pop’ show to other places around the country, starting with Bristol. Also, I am doing another big solo show in 2010, which will be on the same scale as the ‘Stay Free’ exhibition. It will all be self-sustained in a space that I want to deal with, containing my own concepts with my own paintings. So that’s the next a lot of year taken up for me. |
||
 |
Sickboy : http://www.thesickboy.com
Written by Selph |
||
{ TOP } |
|||
