 |
 |
| Feature by Dom Murphy :: Friday, August 15, 2003 |
| We recently hooked up with Adam from Regular Product whilst he was over in Amsterdam. Here's what he had to say. |
| Introductions. What / who is Regular Product and where are you based at the moment? Regular Product is mostly me, Adam C, but loads of friends and other peeps have helped me, so I guess it's different people at different times. It's kinda like a brand name for me to operate under which allows me to do a range of different stuff. Single people tend to get strictly known as either a painter or street artist or t-shirt designer or whatever. I try to do a bit of everything so a pretend corporation allows me that scope. At the moment I'm in Sydney but I started in London and I'll be back there next year. I'll be in New York during the start of next year cos it's an amazing place and I can't wait to get some stuff up there. How would you rate Sydney for stickers and other street activity? Well in terms of other cities I'm used to like London and Amsterdam and Rotterdam and even Brighton, there isn't really that much action here. Stuff gets scraped off really quickly as well so things don't last very long. Most of the time you're lucky to see anything. The council's are winning that little war at the moment, unlike some places where they seem to have pretty much given up - whereas here there'll rip down an amazing big piece that's only been up for a day without blinking. I have seen lots of nice stuff from time to time though but it's a bit isolated - there don't seem to be many dedicated sticker and poster peeps. Like the other day there was a big hand-coloured poster of a guy in a face mask right over one of my favorite spots in Surry Hills just tagged with 'Neo', but I don't know where or why and I haven't seen anything else by the same people yet. But Melbourne should be pretty covered up in the next couple of weeks just in time for the next installment of the Stick Em Up exhibitions - that'll be good. Looking at your work it feels quite bold and slightly retro. How would you describe it? Where do you find your influences? I guess the hands that I'm doing at the moment are kinda Saul Bass in a way and I do really like his stuff. I'm probably influenced more by various art movements and graphic design of the 60s and 70s than other street artists. But my main influence is the way the pieces are going to relate with the environment I put them up in. I liked the idea of something really different from the urban environment, something really recognizable and basic and human like a hand, reaching down into a filthy street and offering a different meaning than it's surroundings - almost out of context. That's why I call them helping hands. I guess the retro thing comes from a desire to make them simple and striking, I don't want too many extra details getting in the way. What reaction do you want people to have when they see it? I think I want them to be confused. To wonder what the fuck that is. The first stickers I did on the street was way back in the early 90s and it was just a direct translation of some gallery work I was doing straight onto the street in an effort to get more people to see it. Hopefully people are intrigued in a good way - like, I don't know what it is, it's almost looks like advertising except it isn't and I like it. I often try to put up in places where there isn't loads of other stuff to get more surprise value out of it. Essentially I want them to like it, even if they don't necessarily understand why it's there. Hopefully it adds to their environment and gives them a smile - that's what I like in other people's work. And it's cool when people draw on them sometimes too. If your stickers were a food, describe the taste? It's something you've never tasted before but it's nice. If you're good and stoned you want to eat a couple of platefuls. How do you make your stickers? Stay late until everyone has gone home wherever I'm working and turn the nice big canon colour printer into a sticker machine or just photocopy them onto Avery sticker paper and hand colour them. Sometimes I go over the black with a good marker so they don't fade to quickly. Bigger paste-up stuff I sometimes photocopy up to A1 or A0 and then hand colour or just draw from scratch with a decent black chinese ink and brush. Then get a good mix of extra strong solvite wallpaper paste, that shit can be like concrete. Any more tips / tricks? Get pissed first. Photocopies fade really quickly after rain. Use the sticker paper backing to rub them down or you'll be filthy as fuck inside of 10 minutes. Don't worry about people watching you unless they're in uniform. Avoid putting anything up ever in Sydney because everything gets scraped off really quickly. Who would your ideal sticker date be? Why? Hooking up with someone who does similar work and having a few beers and going out and getting busy. I had a fine time in Amsterdam with Dom recently. But I'd love to go get a bit of action with loads of people whose work I like - too many to mention. So who is rockin' Regular Product's world at the moment? People whose work I'm really digging at the moment are D*Face, The London Police, Swoon and I really like the attitude of Dan Witz's stuff even though I haven't seen any in the flesh yet. I love the simple bold black and whiteness of D*Face's stuff, it's really distinctive. And I'm in awe of the kind of work that Swoon must put into her pieces, really intricate and detailed. Dan Witz's work is great because he's not playing the whole style game, he just comes up with ideas that are relevant to a street environment and puts them up. But I guess the stuff I enjoy most are things I just see and don't know who did them because then they're more of a surprise. When I was in Amsterdam recently I kept seeing these boy-scout-looking paste-ups and I have no idea who was doing them but they were really cool. Any last words? Why? You gonna kill me? Yeah, I wanted to add one more tip - don't stick something up just cos you think it's cool. Get a good idea first, then apply it to the street and see if it works. And you've gotta keep changing, don't worry too much about style. Thanks Adam! |
 |
 |
|
|
| Further reading... | ||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
|