 |
 |
| Feature by Roller :: Thursday, January 08, 2004 |
| This is the unedited full fat version of the feature in Blowback magazine. |
| Introduce yourself. Hey. I produce work which I put up into the street under the name of D*Face. I live and breathe in London and in order for me to feed my appetite for marker pens, stickers, paint and huge photocopies I currently have to work as a graphic designer for a dull ass design agency… but the New Year will see that change. What's your age? How long have you been in the game? My age… does it matter? Ask my mom. I’ve been integrating my work into the street seriously for over 5 years now. What's the scene like in London? Who's representing over there? The scene in London is good, always new stuff going up either by locals or people traveling through, but as with all places there’s the inevitable badly executed, I’ll considered work up, but that’s the beauty of work in the street, it’s without boundaries or control. Who’s representing over here? Well I gotta’ say my fellow crew members, Dave the Chimp, PMH! and Mysterious Al. I’m loving Dist's work right now and Adam Neate is constantly on it. What’s up with Stolenspace? What’s that project all about? When is the site going to be finished? Who is putting that together? Stolenspace… okay your gonna’ have to run with me on this! Stolenspace has been a dream of mine for a very long time, about 6 years ago I was thinking of a way to summarize what I and other artists who illegally use the streets to express their creativity. I realized it was all about stealing space… the word stolenspace was born… it’s been a long path since then. As stolenspace we document with word and picture all forms of urban art, with my partner Eve B's constant enthusiasm, shared belief and great words we have started to take stolenspace from virtual to reality. Our dream was to create an environment for these artists to express themselves freely to showcase their work and if they choose sell their work to enable them to survive and fuel off their creativity. From my own experiences there have been some worrying cases of people trying to cash in on what they see as a new 'trend', to drain as opposed to support these artists and to quickly associate their 'brand' with this scene. Just as quickly they're onto the next 'new thing' - I've seen this first hand. Stolenspace isn't this. For some breaking news, exclusive to Blowback: we've rented some space. Three floors of what will soon become a one-stop shop for visual artists, right in the heart of London… No.5 Back Hill, Clerkenwell, to be precise. Even bigger news is our first show, a visual battle between two close friends of mine: Flying Fortress and Dave the Chimp. It’s going to be amazing, I promise you that. So head over February 13th 2004 for the opening. For further details contact [email protected] You’re mostly known for 2 of your characters, the “pig nose” with wings and the “square face guy”. Do they have names? Do you have any other less known characters? Which one is your favorite to draw? PIG NOSE! Say what! haha! It’s always funny to hear how other people interpret your characters. But yeah you’re right… I see those characters as my trademark. It was never supposed to be that way but I've really enjoyed developing and evolving them, I have plenty of other characters, but now I’m known for those two and it always comes back to them no matter what else I do. It all started with the buck tooth square head. I just drew and drew this character on this 8 year adhesive vinyl I blagged… with different expressions, detailing etc. I just enjoyed them peering down at people. I was also drawing into and onto a lot of flyposters around the same time. Gradually I started hearing stories of people asking who did them… “Have you seen that face”, “Who’s doing the face? Is he Japanese?” etc. That’s how D*Face was born… I didn’t pick it, but it’s stuck!! I couldn't pick a favorite [character]. That would be unfair on them!!! Do you do most of your work by hand or using a computer? Everything I do starts as a drawing, either in my black book or on a scrap of layout paper. I have a huge folder of doodles. I then scan it in and redraw it to get the clean lines. I love doing both… obviously you don’t have a computer in the street when you've just scoped a lovely clean hoarding or wall spot that’s just calling for a hit. I’m never without my Poscas. When I was in London I kept seeing these cut outs you were putting up on posts. They were kind of 2D sculptures. How did you get that idea? Creating sculptures in the street is something that I feel hasn't really been explored and is something I want to explore further. This was my first step towards that. I wanted these to be up high, flying over-head. As they're made from plastic they last forever, unless they're cut down. I figured if you wanted one, you'd have to work at getting it! Where can people see your work besides the streets of London? New York, Berlin, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Munich all got hit in 2003. New York got a real good coating with lots of stuff still running out there! I just had a show in Stockholm and we the FKC have a show still up at 'Dream bags and Jaguar shoes' in London. |
 |
 |
|
|
| Further reading... | ||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
|