Otto Schade - London Solo Show - ON NOW

OTTO SCHADE - SOLO SHOW

Otto has been creating some great pieces in London recently particularly in the east end. We've interviewed him in a past issue of the magazine and encourage everyone to go see the man's high end works...

Lava Gallery. LAVA Gallery 1.11 Kingly Court, 

Carnaby Street W1B 5PW, United Kingdom  

Opening  Party: 

Thursday 6th January 2010 | 6PM-9PM  

Exhibition from: 

7th January -19th January 2010 Otto Schade Website 

Hackney Council Terminators Hunt ROA's Rabbit

While organised groups of locals residents debate with Hackney council on the merits of protecting all Banksy works found in the borough. Another heated 'what is art?' debate is raging through the councils corridors of power. Afterall one may argue the fact a unique graffiti tag on a wall is art but we don't think the question of whether ROA's rabbit piece is art has any place in this debate.  ROA pieces are all around London particularly in East London and many other cities in Europe. The artist did his first solo show in Pure Evil's gallery in Shoreditch September 2010. Belgium based ROA has been on the rise over the last couple years and Hackney was blessed with numerous pieces who have stood the test of time.

The council seems to be getting it completely wrong in its approach to white washing street art graffiti. They appear to welcome anything that Banksy paints on walls while opting to scrub everything else. ROA is one of the hottest names in the street art world right now and if monetary value is what drives the decision to keep Banksy enshrouded in perplex plastic then ROA's work is highly collectible and soon worth a wee fortune. Hang on though, did we miss a page or something, wasn't it the cutting edge media industry of Brick Lane legend coupled with the street art graffiti movement which created this air of sophistication within the borough that is globally known for its Murder Mile?

ROA's rabbit has been there for months and in that time no-one has painted over it which also shows a mark of respect for the work. If the council white washes the wall just how long do they think it will take before they return to white wash some shabby scrawling. The owner of the premises told journalists "It's quite the opposite of what they're saying it is, it's not a blight – it really adds to the local area. If it was some horrible graffiti then they'd have a point, but it's a thing of beauty in Hackney Road, which is not the greatest area in the world. Among the bingo halls and shops you've got a really nice artwork, which really adds something."

The council told journalists "The graffiti ... is clearly visible from the road and, whilst it is not the council's position to make a judgment call on whether graffiti is art or not, our task is to keep Hackney's streets clean. As part of our enforcement policy, which is informed by Defra guidance, we initially contacted the property owner on an informal basis and offered advice, including what they needed to do if they wished to retain the piece of graffiti. This was followed by a letter and another visit to the property before the removal notice was served. However, we are currently holding our enforcement action to allow the owner a further opportunity to seek planning advice about retaining the piece."

They painted over the Banksy in Church Street last year so we're expecting to see a white wall anytime soon though we hope to see the rabbit for much longer...

A petition has been started so if you wish to see this piece on the wall for longer then please sign the petition and lets help to keep street art on walls and anything else deemed a canvas.

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?PremROA&1

LSD Magazine Interviews - El Seed (Issue 5)

Building bridges across communities, cultures, preconceptions and artistic forms, El Seed is throwing up a unifying mirror of colour, clean form and the universality of cross cultural humanty. Fusing the ancient medium of calligraphy with the urban poetry of graffiti and street art, he unites two artistic currents into Calligraffiti, both in an exploration of his own conflicted identity of a Muslim living in an often dangerously prejudiced western world and the nature of that prejudice itself as he opens a dialogue across religion, culture and community through the glorious metaphor of stylistic heterodoxy. We contacted El Seed as he painted the street of Montreal a softer shade of understanding and had a conversation.


Can you tell us a little about your background 

I grew up in Paris, France. The son of Tunisian immigrants, I was raised between two worlds; between my North African roots and my French European education. I have always been interested in combining these two aspects of my identity, in both my art and in other ventures. I started painting and drawing when I was quite young, but never had any formal training as I ended up in business school.

What took you down the road to Calligraffiti?

Ever since I began to paint and make art, calligraphy was a big part of my life and I would draw inspiration from the old masters of calligraphy. Graffiti also came early on in my artistic life. I began to tag the walls of Paris in 1998 but stopped shortly after my focus changed to University studies. However, I continued to paint on clothes with styles reminiscent of the graffiti and street art scene, never quite losing touch with hip hop culture. Once I moved to North America, first New York City, then Montreal, I began to paint again with the graffiti artist Hest. Through his guidance and support, I began to mix my love for calligraphy and graffiti and eventually emerged with my own style. I am definitely not the first nor the last to paint walls using Arabic script, but my own particular style grew from a mix of classical calligraphy, using clean edges and complicated lettering, and old school graffiti, using walls to create messages and get people to think about pertinent issues.

Can you give us some insight into why calligraphy is considered the highest form of art within Islam

From what I understand, calligraphy developed as a profoundly Islamic form of art due to restrictions concerning pictorial representations, which have their roots in hadiths. Certain schools of thought posit that reproducing images of living creatures is prohibited within Islam, therefore developing forms of art which avoided direct representations of living beings. Furthermore, reverence for the divine text, the Qur’an, gave words and writing a high rank in Islamic societies. Historically, scribes were commissioned to reproduce the Qur’an in the most beautiful lettering possible, thus encouraging artists to develop highly stylized forms of writing. It seems to me that the combination of love and reverence for the Qur’an and certain revelations said to prohibit reproducing living things have made calligraphy one of the most distinct and highest forms of art within Islamic cultures.

How does Islam impact your creative process?

As a Muslim, Islam impacts every part of my life, including my art. Early on, I would paint portraits, cartoons and other forms of representational art. However, as my knowledge of Islam grew and I began to integrate its principles into my everyday life, I realized that I no longer wanted to represent living beings. This is the main reason why I began to develop calligraphy into my painting and why it has now become the vehicle for my artistic messages. In this sense, Islam has shaped my creative process and has guided my paintbrush and my spray can to where they now point.

The name El Seed – is that a play on Sa’id or El Cid, or does it refer to the idea of planting a seed of thought?

When I started graffiti in 1998, I was looking for a name with an Arabic sound which would correspond with my North African roots. I was first inspired by the book ‘Le Cid’ by the French author Corneille. Cid, or Sa’id, means ‘the Man’ and this appealed to me in my youth so I began to tag my name as ‘El Scid’. However, as I began to develop my calligraphic style and my artistic vision began to mature, I changed my name to ‘eL Seed’. I found that this spelling better reflected the quest for my roots and my origins by calling upon the metaphor of a plant.

Do you intend people to decipher the word, as in give it a sound, or view it only visually?

Since I produce murals with the intention of them being viewed in both Arabic and non- Arabic speaking parts of the world, I strive to deliver art which is both pleasing to the eye and thoughtful in its meaning. The writing itself is always important, and every word or phrase I choose is pregnant with allegorical and interpretive meaning. I try to use eyecatching forms and arrangements to pull the viewer into the piece and essentially awaken a curiosity as to what it all means. At the end of the day, one of my main aims is to make people who don’t understand Arabic want to understand, and thus create bridges between languages, cultures and paradigms.


What does abstraction of the written word bring to its meaning?

Being able to appreciate the form of a letter or a word enables the viewer to perceive language not just as letters, words, and sentences but also as art and poetry. Abstraction of the written word provides a more holistic vision and appreciation of what is being read. A letter or word thus begets a personality, a form, an image, which complements its meaning.

READ FULL INTERVIEW IN LSD MAGAZINE ISSUE FIVE

Open publication - Free publishing - More wayne anthony

LSD Magazine Interviews - Pip Rush / Bert Cole - Arcadia (Issue 5)

We know our way round a party here at LSD, but this is pure next generation stuff as every single synapse crackles into a lightening bolt of gobsmacked wonder and the barriers crumble before the onslaught of thousands upon thousands of heaving minds, bodies and souls coming together in breathtaking unity and rushing their fucking nuts and their bolts off. After the spellbinding spectacle that was their field at Glastonbury, we caught up with Pip Rush and Bert Cole - the visionary nutters behind it all for a word...

Can you tell us a little about your backgrounds 

PIP - I grew up in the countryside in Dorset within a family of artists. My brother Joe had just started the Mutoids when I was born so got a lot of inspiration seeing their shows as a kid.Tried the school thing but didn’t enjoy the system, Started working on and off with the Mutoids 15 years on, learned how to build big scrap sculptures and enjoyed some wicked parties around the world. 

BERT - I grew up in the Dorset countryside with an early passion for mechanics, machines, improvisation and acquiring the skills for making things. I went to my first Glastonbury 20 years ago and witnessed Archaos aged 10 which helped my wheels get turning.  I took off on the road at 16 with tent company Kayam that took me all over the world in amongst festivals and events and was quickly made a tent master and spent the next 11 years touring the globe in the summers with a motley tent crew moving giant structures for events from orchestras to raves. In the off season I started to put on my own free parties and was becoming more interested in getting people together with music and entertainment outside of the normal system.

How did you come together to create Arcadia?

PIP - I started a traveling arts café and travelled round European festivals and squats building party environments. It was hard graft with no funding and we spent a lot of time trying to fix the trucks and acquire diesel... But it was loads of fun, and we met hundreds of creative, driven people. We rocked up at a Spanish festival one day and bumped in to Bert who I vaguely knew from childhood. He was erecting these massive tents, having fun with his crew playing about with serious machinery. I was really inspired to see the possibilities when you had quality tools and good food…and I think he was also inspired by how much fun our freestyle creative lifestyle was…


The next year we scored a good budget from a festival in Ireland and he came out to help with his crew. It was a real potent mix of crews and we built an amazing environment full of sculptures, with a big tent in the middle with bands and stuff. Sometime in the early hours we had a chat about how a linear stage and a separation between the musicians, crowd and sculpture was all wrong, so decided to try and merge it all in to one 360 arena…. From the outside we looked like a dribbling mess, but on the inside wed just hit on an idea that was about to grow beyond our wildest visions!


BERT - I knew of Pip from an early age as we grew up pretty near each other but started to get more in touch as time went on and we realized we had some common interests. I worked as part of a team Pip put together to produce an area at Electric Picnic in 2006 and there was something really positive about working together and the ball started rolling there really as the momentum gathered to try and create, make or produce things in festivals that were nothing traditional but a fusion of influences and elements that combined, made for a full 360 degree all encompassing atmosphere in which people could really let themselves go. This was made relatively obvious from witnessing years of festivals and concerts always following the same old linear formula of stage and auditorium etc. We quite clearly decided to turn it inside out and upside down and create a hub from which effects, music, energy radiates in which people are amongst rather than simply watching. Where things have got to now is a mere evolution of what started for us there.

How important is recycling and mutation in within the Arcadia concept?

PIP - Hmm, it’s massive. Anyone with a few basic skills and a welder can make amazing things out of scrap with very little other resources. Also the inspiration that comes from visiting a scrap yard and seeing mountains of machines from past generations piled up high is massive in itselfe.… We get all our stuff from military scrap yards, Its interesting seeing crates and crates of 

BERT - I feel like we start with outlandish concepts and then search for good bits of scrap as building blocks, slot then in and re arrange them. This allows the concept, design and manufacture to organically and simultaneously develop along an exciting path.

How important is wider team spirit and the essence of collaboration in the bigger installations?

PIP - It’s all about that really, building creative stuff, pushing the boundaries and having a big party at the end really brings the best out of people. ‘Arcadia’ has attracted so many amazing individuals and groups in to my life, all who have inspired me and shaped how I live. I think everybody must have a similar motive, because they all give their heart and soul to work around the clock and make it happen… and they’re definitely not doing it for the money! 

BERT - It’s all about the people, community and spirit. What we do is fuelled greatly by huge amounts of enthusiasm, focus and relentless hard work towards a collective goal by many amazing people who have a huge range in skills, interests lifestyles and ideals. Together these form a multi faceted, ever changing collective who point in the same direction.

READ FULL INTERVIEW IN LSD MAGAZINE ISSUE FIVE

LSD Magazine Interviews - French Street Art Legend C215 (Issue 5)

Laced with a both a haunting realism and an otherworldly transcendence of the flesh into the immortal mysteries of identity, the supremely prolific and painfully genuine C215’s work drips with the whirlwind emotions of the human condition. He speaks through the universal language of communication, the human face to the universal elements of our existence and our shared hopes and shattered dreams through savagely emotive, yet silently reflective portraits that define the commonalities of humanity through the fragmentation we all feel so witheringly and all collude in so blindly. Yet while he urges silent introspection toward our attitudes and prejudices through his silent poetry, despite all the corrupting ills of society, greed and ego that penetrate us an overwhelming joy and embrace of all that is human shines through through the radiant energy that vibrates around his work and the exuberant and dramatic color schemes he so often hurls into the increasingly monochrome world around us. This is intangible complexity in all its conflicted clarity and the man himself took a moment for an exchange of ideas with LSD...

Can you tell us a little about your background and your early journey 

My life was reasonably stable until the age of 14 when I became a raging drug addict : hash, heroin, coke and moreover LSD. My LSD period was unarguably great for opening up channels of creativity, but led also to a certain self destruction. I travelled with the Nomads alongside Spiral Tribe in the early 90’s until I found myself in jail and was forced to re assess my condition, realising that it was time to get myself clean of drugs and start out on the next phase of my life. I began to study tentatively, before the momentum began to snowball and I eventually found myself with a masters degree in Art History, another in History and 2 bachelors degrees, one in German, and the other in English. I fee


What impact did the illegal rave scene have on your creativity and your perception of the world?

It gave me the opportunity to discover that you can be at the heart of a movement that is bigger than you and step outside pure individualism into communal goals, communal living, and a wider purpose. It woke me up to the fact that you don’t need to go to night clubs or museums to experience art, but that you can feel art, create art and be art by yourself, doing it with your mates in unexpected places each with their own intangible character like abandoned warehouses or caves. Ultimately, art is visual poetry, and poetry is always unexpected. 

Is there a beauty in the abandoned?

Whatever is abandoned can equally be saved, and that is the essence of romanticism. Abandoned warehouses, asylums and derelict wastelands reflect our own lives, with a strong sense of the ephemeral. We feel small and modest when we weigh our prized individualism against time and the wider universe, and consider how long any of us or anything we do will last within collective memory. Time being stopped in a specific place helps us to understand how short and transient life really is.


What does our attitude to public space say about us as a society?

In today’s Western cities we find ourselves living in an increasingly puritan atmosphere. Under the questionable cover of struggling against crime and terrorism, cities have been cleaned up to the point of obliterating any form of self expression with the glaring exception of branding and corporate advertising. The bottom line is that within in a modern liberal economy, public space exists solely to generate profits for commercial interests through the penetration and shaping of our daily reality - that’s it. It’s up to us to change this scandalous dynamic and speak about the place of human beings in the urban landscape. Raising that voice and letting it ring out and be heard would truly be a new humanism.

What effect does gentrification have on community identity?

Gentrification gradually forces cities of the world to fit the same mould. Communities are slowly being dissolved to allow this globalised uniformity to set in and genuine social relationships tend to disappear, leaving society and the urban landscape only really able to sustain business relationships. There are walls of separation everywhere: door codes, guards, cards, etc that break down the spirit of human interaction and communal trust and break us down into a dehumanised conformism.


How do you explore the forgotten in your work?

I try to show the neglected and the rejected people society chooses to blind itself to - the homeless, street kids, people who failed or had no chance to succeed and I paint their inherent beauty and dignity. In a world where people who have fallen through the net of officially ‘socially acceptable’ I try in my own way to bring their identities into the light and perhaps awaken the passing viewer to the real flesh and blood, feeling individuals that they may decide to ignore or whose conditioning may not allow them to embrace the common humanity they have with these forgotten souls.

Is there a universal language of the human face? 

Emotion is universal and eyes betray the same feelings everywhere. What is important is to find the link that unifies us within the same community and a shared humanity, beyond religion, politics, economic imbalances and social issues. My job would be to gather people once more around simple feelings they could share together, facing an unexpected homeless portrait painted in a street and speak directly to the individual humanity within the portrait that speaks to the primal in us all.

READ FULL INTERVIEW IN LSD MAGAZINE ISSUE FIVE

Open publication - Free publishing - More wayne anthony

LSD Magazine Interviews - Muro (Issue 5)

Bilbao born artist Muro has evolved out of straight up lettering into an astonishingly diverse and vibrant set of styles. Globetrotting from Europe to Senegal with cans in hand - his bizarre menagerie of surrealist wonder is truly the stuff that brings the concrete to life and sets the imagination flowing. Hampered by a language barrier on the interview front - we did a Q+A, but have tried to cram in as many images as possible into the piece......

Self taught or art school? 

Self taught 

How long you been painting and what influenced your decision to paint on the streets? 

Since 2000, influenced by the 90´s Barcelona scene  

Are artists safe from arrest in your city? 

Absolutelly yes, I´m actually living in a small town where graffiti has a good reception by the people. 

How important is street art and graffiti in your city? 

Not enought, it´s never enought. 

You’ve painted in many countries, how do you decide on what country to visit next? 

Sometimes I receive a invitation to paint in a foreing city and other times I go where I want.  

More and more artists are travelling to paint in Africa, how did Senegal respond to an artist painting on their streets? 

It´s always a surprise, they are very opened to receive people and treated me very good, maybe they're inocence makes them better people than us. 

Street art graffiti in most cities has a very short shelf life before someone goes over it or get buffed, do you have the same problem in your cities and how do you personally respond? 

I try to not get affected by this acctions because everybody knows that graffiti is a ephemeral art, but sometimes I get angry and painted again over it.

READ FULL INTERVIEW IN LSD MAGAZINE ISSUE FIVE

Open publication - Free publishing - More wayne anthony

Old Skool graffiti artist Busk Paints Lord Napier

Old Skool graffiti artist Busk relived part of his youth as he threw up his calling sign on the Lord Napier pub. In days gone by no permission would be sought for this particular hideaway in Hackney Wick. Today though, Busk has the full permission of the owner Paul which was better than nailing all the doors shut from the outside with any threats locked silently within the four walls. Yes, Paul is sound as a pound and even offers the space for artist to exhibit their wares. Meanwhile Busk was attracting the most attention for spraying gold paint on the wall, to the untrained eye it looked, well, they couldn't be sure. Someone asked me if it was Banksy i said if he could spray lines like that i dont think he'd be doing stencils but then again he just might. As Busk finished tarnishing the red walls gold, graffiti legend Snoe began throwing up his piece on the other outside wall.


A host of artists (including Run, Cept, Discreet) were on the streets painting walls for the Hackney Wicked Arts Festival in 'erm Hackney Wick. Trains run direct to the station... Tomorrow and Sunday dozens of well known street / graffiti artists will be painting live on the streets throughout the event... We'll be down there and say hello...

Sclater Street (Brick Lane) - Completely Buffed

It was always gonna be just a matter of time before the Hall of Fame was completely taken out by the corporate suits. This is the general plan for all the Halls of Fame in London and as we all know, where's there's a blank wall you'll always attract taggers and wannabe vandals. One by one the infamous Hall of Fame's are disappearing…When will the authorities learn that by banning proper graffiti / street artists they run the risk of badly drawn tags, names, doodling…Commission artists to paint walls and they wont look so messy...

White Cross Street Party - Today & Tomorrow

Its the first time we've been to a White Cross Street art event and we really didnt know what to expect. Firstly the flyer just said White Cross Street and didnt mention a venue, we thought great, now we have to wonder up n down trying to find the gaff. Alas this was not too be as almost the entire street has become a walk-through interactive live painting studio and art gallery. Art adores the outside walls of many local businesses which is always nice too see. Normal folk and artists without the bullshit buffer zone of judgment, criminal prosecution and media telling folk how to think and act towards street art graffiti... So in true spirit of reclaim the streets the art contingent was out in full...We met a ton of artists, filmmakers and street art aficionados... 'ow u doing?' 


Get your ass down there Tomorrow (Sunday) as everything you could possibly need from off licenses, restaurants, pubs, street food and more importantly street art graffiti....

Respect to T.wat / Busk for adding LSD Tag...Nice One lads...Its the first time that LSD Mag has been painted on anything and who better to break the cherry than these two legends...

Our man Stik...

Our man Milo

The 'Busk'

See ya there and come say hi...

4ft Graffiti Yob Gets 9 Months - News Article

Hoodie(!) Street Artist 'Eine' & The President of U S of A

Eine Official Site : http://www.einesigns.co.uk/

Its a Fair Cop - LSD & Thames River Police in Hackney Wick

Weather forecasts predicted much rain today (Monday so i decided to cycle up to Hackney Wick to shoot some new Paste Up posters i spotted a day before. While in the area i thought i may as well check all the other hot spots in the manor for new art works. Im cycling up and down, round and round taking shots until i noticed two policemen parking their Land Rover on the Olympic Bridge. At that moment i was on my way to the other-side of the canal so i could shoot some new stuff there. I passed the police and cycled round to the spot i wanted to snap. While shooting it suddenly dawned on me that the cops may well be the same chaps arresting artists in the area for painting walls. I decided to look if they were heading down to The Wall by the canal as thats where artists have come unstuck.

I arrived at the The Wall noticing the cops had indeed already walked passed it. I dumped my bike and went for my camera in the hope i could snap them and discuss it on our blog. Alas as pointing the camera at their backs they turned round and spotted my high res jacket!!! I didnt snap them but continued shooting The Wall though i noticed they'd turned back and heading in my direction. I thought they defiantly gonna think I'm here to paint the wall and they may even wish to search my bag. Now it should noted i have MAJOR issues about being stopped and searched in the street, its takes us back to the dark days of the SUSS Laws of the early eighties and European Courts have deemed the UK's use of CCTV / Stop n Search as illegal and fined the UK heavily. Tax Payers absorb the fine but the bylaw still stands. So Im thinking if they want to search me i will outright refuse on Common Law grounds then Im thinking its Monday and i got LSD deadlines and if i take that stance Im going to the police station. It was a quick decision, I'll stand my ground.

Snapping away awaiting to hear that authoritarian voice. The policemen were wearing Navy Blue uniforms and not the normal Metropolitan Police attire. A gentle voice says 'hello'  and the Peace Officers comment on what great artwork is painted on the wall. They told me not too worry they don't care if Im here painting or taking photographs. They complimented the artists saying how it does no harm to anyone and they thought it was a waste of time going after them. I told them a few artists had been arrested there last month and they were really surprised. They said they not heard anything but not been in the area for months anyway. Last time they were here the boss wanted them to find Sweet Toof but they dismissed it!!! The reason for them being there is too check the houseboats and not arrest artists as i first thought. As long as it wasn't personal property they didn't see the harm…

It appears some artists are taking the chance of painting The Wall since news broke of the arrests though the entire wall hasn't been redecorated for at least six weeks. As far as The Wall is concerned is now or never because as the Olympics draws closer the area will be on FULL ARMED LOCK DOWN…

LSD Magazine interviews Graffiti Legend Mear One - ISSUE 4

If the apogee of the graffiti artform is the hijacking of commercially numb public space to question, provoke and elevate the viewer into a higher state of reflective consciousness then Mear One is spraying up the cutting edge. Unifying the psychedelic truth of inner space and the multi dimensional journey of the soul with a piercing lament for the geo political genocide of the human spirit, his work shatters the barricades of daily reality and forces engagement with the archetypal issues we face both as individuals and a society. His spirit floods forth in paint, colour and sublime abstraction, questioning our existence, subverting our comfort zones and relentlessly driving the consciousness of the street into bitter realisation, the anger of activism and the transcendental exhaltation of true unity within our collective consciousness. LSD caught up with the man himself for a quick trip

Could you please tell us a little about your background and your journey into art

I got my start as a graffiti artist in Los Angeles in the late 80’s doing vandalism, learning how to evolve my art through the graffiti form and practising and competing as an artist out here in America. Being a graffiti artist means that you have a lot of competition and it really provokes you to go places with your art that no school can ever reach or to pull unexpected bits of information out so that you can get the attention, make the noise or get the big bang that all graffiti artists are looking for. I think we all start out in graffiti looking for a major impact to get some recognition because we’re coming from the hood, coming from the streets and we’re coming from a place of poverty and coming from a place where you don’t really have a chance. In the mid nineties I evolved into a different head space after witnessing the LA riots and after going through years of gang violence in LA, being endlessly in and out of jail, dealing with getting beat up and watching the courts financially wrench the hell out of you and take all your money all the time. I think it caused my mind to metamorphosise into a new state where I started to look at the world very differently. I was raised by an intensely liberal hippy mother who was a deeply radical thinker in her own right and whose ideas and training went into me and started to emerge at this point in my life. I was waking up to what was really screwed up with the world and what was really going on, relentless oppression and this whole capitalism, money matrix that’s running the planet, and realised that as far as graffiti art went… It was great to put up my name and my crew’s, but I wanted to dive artistically into a far deeper message and I think that some of my first canvases began to reflect that. My message was revolution -  don’t believe the hype,  wake yourself up to the complicated world around you and take some accountability. I guess my art has now evolved into more of a story telling language machine that communicates ideas that we’re not always talking about but need to be discussed, and what I’m doing now is working on a lot of pieces that are either social commentary or politically charged and have some essence of the spirit in them that lifts us out of the mockery that we find ourselves in.

 Speaking of spirituality, a lot of your work references eastern spirituality and there’s a lot of third eye’s in there. Can you give us a bit of insight into that?
 
Absolutely. A lot of my work also references western traditions, I’m very much into philosophy, psychology and theology – I find all these ism’s incredibly fascinating… Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, Judaism whatever it may be. Religions and sciences enthral me. I’ve actually come up with a term called “ismology”  -  ism and ology fused together  and that is effectively the type of work that I do. I incorporate a lot of fantastic ideas that come from philosophy and spiritual beliefs that are a huge influence to me and I feel that to express these philosophical or spiritual ideas is the most rewarding act I can take on as an artist, because when you are painting these things they actually realise themselves in your life and start to resonate within everything you do. It actually becomes in a strange sense, healing as an artist to paint this way because it’s the association you’re hanging out with. If you’re hanging out with your art all the time and your art is talking a lot of negative shit it’s gonna affect your head space but if you’re hanging out with your art and you’re really pouring some heavy work into philosophies and spiritual ideas that thousands of people have invested thousands of years into, suddenly you have a very powerful generating energy and reality manifested around yourself and I think that that’s probably what people recognise in my art. My overriding passion within this art form is to tell stories and to speak to people directly about whatever is hanging me up in the moment or whatever I feel is hanging the world up  - quite often it’s both me and the world, all of us being held up by something and you know my biggest joy is to try to articulate that hold up. What’s blocking our lives? What’s fucking with us? And I want to illustrate that for people so that they can get a firm grasp around at least the conversation, at least inspire them to start talking about their lives and the world that they live in and the way that it’s politically or spiritually growing or diminishing around them.

On that note should art ever just be about aesthetics or should it always be pushing the boundaries of understanding and consciousness?
 
Well that’s an interesting question! Should life be purely functional or should we enjoy it and get something better out of life than we put into it? I don’t know. I think that there is something spiritual and powerfully moving just in colour alone; purely in form and shape. But I do think that one has to have an understanding of something higher than themselves and something greater than their own ego just to be able to use colour in its higher form because we can use colour to match the couch and we can use form to shape the environment, but at the end of the day a lot of form, shape and colour around us just falls to the background. It has no voice, it has no entity to it at all and my goal is to try to invest as much of that entity, of that voice into my work as possible. You know I don’t think that everyone needs to dig deep into their soul and express their spiritual or philosophical spectrum to do good art but I do think that art should communicate and it should communicate something that’s worth communicating.

READ FULL LSD INTERVIEW IN ISSUE 4 - HERE

Old Street Corporate Street Art Hoardings

Its good to see property developers taking a step closer to actually working with street / graffiti artists. Instead of leaving a huge blank space screaming to be painted the company appears to have commissioned Judith Supine to shoot a series of photos which were then selected to grace hoardings in Old Street. This is a positive step in the right direction and contractors minutes down the road should take note. Rather than just buff (clean, paint over) walls why not commission artists to paint the hoardings once a month. This will bode well with locals and visitors to the area who are mostly attracted to the place because of the street art graffiti. So here we present a series of photos of street art photography pasted onto the construction hoardings in Old Street… erm' its kinda street isn't it?

UPFEST this Weekend - Saturday 5th June - 6th June