In the green month of April, spring 2011 brought my friend Amin to Sheffield from Lille in France.
I met Amin when he put me up at his house when I visited France in 2010; I got to return the favor when he came to Sheffield.
Originally I was worried where we would paint, as places to paint in Sheffield can change regular, also the weather is always a factor, however we were blessed with heat and sunshine through out his visit. We decided on painting one of Sheffields oldest graffiti walls, with a history of graffiti being painted there way back in the 80's.
At first, painting the whole wall seemed a bit daunting as it was a decent size, but fauna managed to persuade me it was the right thing to do. For the next 3 days we enjoyed long hot days of painting, then returning home for good food and beers in the garden.
It was a pleasure to have Amin visit, check out some of his work here....
http://www.benjaminduquenne.com/
May 2011
Blackpool was the host of our next event.
For those people not familiar with blackpool in the uk, its often referred to as the 'las Vegas' of England, a characteristic sea side place which is a popular holiday destination and night time illuminations but lacking in any significant graffiti scene.
Robin Ross organized a superb event scattered across various sites around Blackpool, Fauna myself and other artists had the chance to introduce graffiti and street art to the public of Blackpool.
The event was titled sand sea and spray, local newspapers and the public showed a strong interest in all the artwork and the event was hailed a success.
Robin Ross has already begun planning a second event for 2012 and organizing a large commission for January really looking forward to it
Big thanks to robin Ross.
http://www.robinross.co.uk/
June 2011saw the release of a great new book by hard working photographer 'romanywg'
For the last few years, Jerome Gibbs has been traveling around the UK and Europe photographing graffiti artwork. Rather than choosing to photograph more popular types of graffiti and street art like the work of banksy and every other artist that follows him in and around the London area, Jerome had an interest in documenting graffiti art that was painted in derelict and abandoned factories and buildings.
For a while now photographers calling them selves urban explorers have been photographing the apocalyptic scenes of decay and neglect of places that have been left empty. Naturally on their missions through out these places they began to encounter the work of graffiti artists who also enjoyed the setting of dereliction and shelter from the elements.
In 2010 I was constantly contacted by photographers asking where my work was painted and how would they find it.
I was very surprised when Jerome traveled north from London to the countryside of Yorkshire to photograph our work, some of which was well hidden and difficult to find. His hard work paid off and he managed photograph much of my work in derelict buildings for his book titled 'out of sight' which was released.
A chunky hard back book featuring a mixed collection of 'urbex art' from across Europe, featuring art work by artists like roa, aryz septik, phlegm fauna and many more.
What I really liked about this book was the attention it brought to Sheffield.
The book featured many locations, but three of the artists, fauna phlegm and myself were from Sheffield. I felt this said a lot about what graffiti and street artists in Sheffield were doing. For years it seemed like all the work we were painting out of sight under the grim northern sky went unnoticed with much of the attention focused on the London. Out of sight established Sheffield as one of the capital cities for urbex art in the UK.
Out of site can be bought online from Amazon or from all good high street bookstores.
The release of out of site brings me to my next meeting.
The work of some French artists was featured in the book MOUARF-ZIRU-ICOLE-SEPTIK. In the summer of 2011 they decided to tour a number of places around Europe. Sheffield was on their list for places within the UK.
Again, I worried if I would be able to accommodate the French crew and provide them with a good-sized wall. Although we have a number of empty buildings in Sheffield that are great for painting they can often be small and unsuitable for production paintings.
I managed to find a half decent wall, and for the day we worked away in one of Sheffields more secretive painting spots that also provides excellent panoramic views of the city sprawl.
After painting I took them to another popular place in Sheffield and showed them the work of other local artists.
I wasnt at my best during that day as I had just returned from a painting trip to San Francisco and was real tired. It was great to have the French guys visit and I was grateful for their efforts and interest in visiting Sheffield.
Mouarf was an artist and photographer with the group, some of his work can be seen here on flickr...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/graffprod/
So ... Next up was the biggest trip fauna and myself did in 2011
I was invited by a man called Giovanni leiva from discovery bay in California to paint an opening scene for a new TV show.
I was also coinciding this trip with a long planned visit to see my friend Eon75 .. A graffiti artist from San Francisco whom I met at the meeting of styles graffiti art event in Wiesbaden in Germany in 2007
After arriving in discover bay California it quickly became apparent that Giovanni leiva talked out of his arse and was badly disorganized, so I cut short my trip there and arrived early to paint with Eon.
Eon is a great guy who lived in the ashbury haight district of San Francisco.
We arrived at his apartment and within hours were painting a wall at one of the cities oldest and most famous halls of fame...
It was my first time in America so was I taking everything in. San Francisco has a vibrant graffiti and street art scene with different groups of people producing different styles of artwork on the streets of the city.
Eon paints highly original organic styles and really stands out there, he introduced us to his friend Derek who gave us a full two days tour of graffiti spots around the city along with all the history ... We seemed to walk for miles and at the end of the day my little English feet were in agony but it was well worth it.
In the evenings we enjoyed trawling Eons many favorite bars and eating burritos!
Eon managed to organize 3 walls for us in total, with the highlight being the side of an Irish bar in the city centre. Eon had previously painted the walls there and agreed that we should give it a new look. The finished piece can be seen in the collaborations page of my site.
Eon looked after us really well I cant thank him enough
To see more of his work check out his site here www.maxehrman.com
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August 2011
August saw the see no evil event in Bristol. A stunning event, which showcased some of Europes best graffiti and street artists painting down the length of a whole street, the quality of the work was excellent with artists working around and high above each other on the sides of buildings. The event had an after party and much of the walls were painted prior to this. Although fauna and myself were not given a wall, we did have the opportunity to paint on boards live during the opening and after party. The streets were packed with people and the event a major success. Check out what fauna and myself painted in the collaborations page of my site!
September 2011
The end of summer brought my last major project of the year.
Fauna and myself were commissioned by Sheffield University to produce a massive amount of artwork for the opening of their new science department.
It was one of those dream jobs that was a pleasure to work on.
We began with an exterior mural on the Richard Roberts building. At the entrance to the building we painted a number of large images depicting wildlife and plants, with an emphasis on sustainability and environment. The murals looked great and upon completion, a number of large organic looking seating was placed around the paintings along with plants and flowerbeds. The seating was a real nice touch that resembled large smooth pebbles from a riverbed.
Next we began by producing around 60 paintings for the walls of the new lecture theatres.
Using only spray paint on wood we were tasked with producing images of science and biology, these included plants and animals, microbes and viruses.
Fauna and myself spent September and October hard at it in the studio to meet the deadline. The work was finished and delivered then fitted to the walls of the lecture theatre, the end result was stunning and the university was very happy.
After that we began a number of interior murals in a smaller lecture theatre and some of the office and computer rooms. Some of this work was more organic and abstract; one piece in particular though was a large display of steel cogs we were tasked with painting, again a real joy to paint.
Much of the work we painted for this job can be seen in the commissions page of the site.
November
Finally fauna and myself managed to squeeze one last job out of 2011 before the weather turned bad.
We were contacted by converse to work on their project called 'wall to wall'
Converse had been working with graffiti and street artists across America and Europe in various cities creating large murals incorporating the converse logo.
Fauna designed an excellent mural that was to be painted onto a large building in the centre of Manchesters northern quarter.
We only had 3 days to paint the wall and we had to work along side a TV crew from Switzerland who were going to document the whole thing and create a video at the end of it all.
Most of the work was done on scissor lifts which were operated by martin, he really enjoyed working with us and together we had a good laugh.
On the 3rd day we worked solid for 18 hours to get the wall done, using floodlights to illuminate the wall at night.
Fauna's idea for the mural was to bring nature into the city, so she decided to paint the worlds largest blue tit on to the side of what is a listed building in Manchester.
Ruse, a graffiti artist from Manchester was also drafted in to give us a helping hand and make sure the work was completed on time.
The converse team looked after us really well and it was a real joy to help bring fauna's design to life.
The team from Switzerland made an excellent video, which can now be seen, in the video page of my site.
Its been a good year, and I would like to thank everyone Ive met and worked with. In particular
Richard chard Connelly, Amin, Eon75, Sheffield University, Robin Ross, Rusty's photography, bloc studios, Jerome Gibbs, Annar 50 and Jim Lambert
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November 2010// France : 911 Graffiti Battle, Lille
The final event i attended in 2010 was in France near Lille in a city called Roubaix.
I was invited over to take part in a small international graffiti competition lasting only 2 hours.
The paint we had to use was Ironlak, and to be honest i wasn't really feeling it. Bit drippy, bad smell but i didn't mind too much, i kind of worked with the paint to produce a kind of drippy loose piece with a bit of humour. The concept we were given was 'Vegatation' which i was happy with as plants feature a lot in my work, which also meant i had a large database of characters stored in my head which i had sketched and practiced time and time again.We were not told the concept prior to painting and we weren't allowed to use any sketches at all. So the pieces were all totally free styled.
I didn't win the competition but it was nice to take part and represent the UK.
What i enjoyed most about our time in France was the time we spent with 'Amin' who kindly allowed us to stay at his apartment for four days. He organised a superb wall in Valenciennes which was painted by around 20 writers from Belgium and France. Although the weather was freezing cold we successfully painted a large wall which was luckily under shelter. Some of the writers who painted the wall with Fauna and myself were Xerou, Spazm, Keyler, Amin, Arsh, Drum, Sorka, Icole2, Seter, Stern, Perso, Caz, Cajou, Soler, Peruk, and Romi. Farceur trevor and Nemax.
Big thanks to Amin and every one we met.
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September 2010 // Larnaca , Cyprus 2010
In September Fauna and myself were invited to Cyprus to take part in a small competition event in Larnaka. My good friend Inva from greece,
( http://www.inva.gr/ ) called me up and told me about the event which was being organised by Savvinos who ran a great little gallery in Larnaka called Afydaton and also organising the event was the municipality of the Larnaka region in Cyprus.
We had an amazing time, Cyprus is Beautiful and the organisers looked after us really well. While there all the artists showed work at the Afydaton gallery. Some of the artists who were invited over from abroad included Reb, Razel, Inva, Ser, and Koff from Greece,
Locatelli also came over from Belgium.
Fauna and myself made a holiday of the event and went over to Cyprus a few days before the event to relax and also to do some research and photography in preparation for the competition.
Cyprus and Larnaka region has a great history and the rules of the competition were to produce a mural about Larnaka which incorporated the past, present and future of the region. Although the competition was nice Fauna and myself mostly enjoyed hanging out with the other artists swimming in the sea and eating the food.
The competition winners were announced in November 2010, Locatelli came 1st Fauna 2nd and myself 3rd. It was nice to win a place and all 3 of us decided to put the money we won back into Cyprus economy by asking if we could return in 2011 and paint a wall there, we are currently working to organise this.
Fauna and myself would firstly like to give a big thanks to Inva, then Savvinos and finally the municipality of Larnaka.
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July2010 // MOOCH GALLERY
July 2010 saw the opening of Mooch, Manchester,s newest contemporary street art gallery and our first solo show in Manchester.
The show went really well although we were only given 4 weeks notice to prepare for the show, Fauna and myself worked really hard to prepare around 40 pieces.
We decided to call the show 'Natural selection' and the work we painted featured a nature influenced feel to it.
We worked day and night to produce a wide range of paintings, Some on wood panels and some nice pieces on Linen and in different sizes. Prior to the opening we were asked to paint something directly onto the walls of the gallery which was great although if we had more time i felt we could have painted something bigger.
To see a short video of what we did at Mooch gallery check the video page of my site and click the mooch video.
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JUNE 2010 // UPFEST
In June 2010 Faunagraphic, Sebasura and myself attended the UPFEST in Bristol.
Upfest is a street art event which has been taking place every year for the past few years in Bristol. The event is mostly made up of stencil and street artists but over all has a good mix of artists painting.
The event is open to the public and once again this year it was held at the Tobacco factory. Boards were put up for all the artists to work on and the public seemed to really love all the work being produced.
Upfest 2010 was really well organised this year and painting there was smooth with no problems.
Sebasura and myself painted a nice piece with Jaw Heng and Hep from France. We had a great spot which was sheltered (always nice considering the unpredictable British weather) Check the collaborations page of the site to see what was painted.
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Oct 2009// Colombia Trip
The biggest event i took part in for 2009 was in Colombia. I was invited to Bogota the capital of Colombia along with Does and Chas of the Loveletters crew from Europe.
The Positive art organisation run by Shaday organised Hip hop al parque the biggest hip hop event in south America.Nerf from Argentina and Senk from Venezuela were two other artists invited to take part in the event., I travelled over with Sune from Leeds and Jaer from Sheffield.Together with a number of graffiti writers from Bogotá Pez Shaday Gris Ospen we painted a number of pieces throughout the city.
We also gave a talk and presented images of our work at the Bogota university to fellow writers and students interested in graffiti art.The guys from Positive art were really good to us and looked after us very well. Bogota is a great city with a vibrant graffiti scene and more walls to paint than you can ever imagine. The writers in Bogota have some great styles and the whole black book culture is very much alive, every writer has a black book and its an important thing for other writers to sign there books. By the end of our time there we must have signed hundreds of them. The city is a sprawling metropolis surrounded by mountains and sits 8537ft above sea level making it the 3rd highest city in the world, it took us a few days to adjust to the altitude.I had an amazing time there and would love to go back.Thanks to everyone I met and big up all the writers in Bogota Colombia.Thanks to Shaday and crew of Positive art.
