LSD Magazine: LSD Magazine Interviews Artist 'Ezra'

Monday, 31 May 2010

LSD Magazine Interviews Artist 'Ezra' - ISSUE 4

From the spraying up the tranquil idyll of Lucerne to shaping the world into an explosion of piercing image and ravishing colour, Ezra’s dazzling work is on the rampage. Incredibly clean forms are illuminated by a spectacular assault of colour and an imagery that fuses together a surreal landcape of the nightmareish, the, dreamlike, and the raw power of the street. Collaborating far and wide and taking his talent intercontinental, Ezra took a moment out from the can to have a word with LSD...

You've been painting for fourteen years but what initially brought you to graffiti art as opposed to other art forms?

The fact that my father is an artist (www.rolandpirk-bucher.ch) always kind of made me being interested into art in general. When I was a kid I was drawing almost every day and got familiar with art after seeing my father paint and having exhibitions. Around 1996 I got more and more into the Hip Hop culture. Next to the music I found out about the other elements and soon got in touch with Graffiti. I didn't really know what's behind it and didn't know that much about the scene but I was fascinated by the movement and that so many people my age and a little older were into it. I loved to see how people worked together and pushed each other that defiantly made me fall in love with that kind of art.

Your work is of an exceptional quality did it take you very long to master the graffiti style?

In the beginning it was hard because I didn't know how to use a spraycan that well. The old cans called Sparvar were a little different than the ones nowadays as well. But after painting a couple of years I found out about the tricks and how you paint clean and small stuff and developed more ideas and my style. It was a lot of learning by doing and painting as much as I could.

Graffiti writers and Street Artists are being called anti-establishment and at times anarchists, do you think this accurately describes the artists involved in street work?

In my opinion the graffiti culture definitely has its roots in the anti establishment. I remember that graffiti artists often added words to their pieces and wrote critical things about the society. You still find that nowadays but not as often as in the past. As a street artist it is much easier to reach people because they have to see what you paint either they want to or not. You don't have to tell people to come to a gallery to see what you paint and think- the streets become your gallery and the reaction happens immediately.

Tell us a little about the graffiti / street art scene in your city.

I live in Lucern which is in the middle of Switzerland. Lucern used to have a lot of graffiti artists in the past but never really was the main city in Switzerland when it comes to Graffiti art these are more Basel and Zürich. In the past couple years the scene went back a lot in Lucern which is a pitty. There are still people doing their thing but you don't see graffiti that much anymore. When I was younger people were painting a lot and you could see new pieces and bombings all over the place. People were gathering at jams and a lot of productions happened all the time.

Has graffiti been commercially excepted as an art form in Switzerland?

I would say yes it has. Not completely but I know about the reactions of different people when I paint. Next to young people a lot of older and even really old people like this kind of art. When people catch me painting they always ask me many questions and watch how I work with spraycans. It is something people see but they never really get in touch with the person behind it which makes it interesting to them. Over here Graffiti artists go their way into galleries and lawyers and business people buy graffiti art. Even art collectors start collecting canvasses and artists get invited to big art events. Graffiti appears in the graphics a lot too. I appreciate that development but I hope that the standard always stays high and wont become too adapted only to sell.