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Dec 2, 2009, 11:54am

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Silky
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Vapors Mag D*Face Interview
« Thread Started on Aug 7, 2006, 5:06pm »

http://www.vaporsmagazine.com/articles/a....cleSection_ID=0

D* Face: Dog save the Queen
09/12/05

So D*…tell me, have you always dreamt of having your own gallery space or is this something you realized you could do and just went for it?

Well, it certainly wasn't like when you're at school and the teacher goes round the class and asks what you want to be when you grow up and you get kids saying, uuhh, fireman, surgeon, spaceman and it comes to me and I say, street artist and gallery owner! It was a vision I had well over three years ago, I felt it was about time London/Europe had a committed gallery to showcase the amazing work of the artists I had seen traveling, to represent the artists from an artists' perspective, to support and not exploit the scene. I was also really fed up with working out of my loft, drinking nine cups of tea a day and looking at porn instead of painting, so a place that could combine an artist studio to work out of, a good size dedicated gallery space and store to sell artists products and materials… that was the full tilt idea!

Let's back up a second, for those that don't know, tell me how and what Dface is and the path that got Dface where he is today?
My first experience of graffiti was drawing on my mum's wall with a crayon, aged seven-I knew it was wrong, but s**t, it felt so much better than the coloring in books she gave me. Skip forward a few years to when I first got Subway Art and Spray Can Art; like most kids that book served as a seminal turning point in my life, the book was eye candy to a starving, hungry, sweet-addicted kid. At about the same point in my life I'd really gotten into skateboarding and used to pick up Thrasher magazine from the older kids at school; the board graphics and adverts in the magazine fascinated me, but I couldn't work out who created them or how you could get a job doing this. I applied for a college course in design and animation, my mum was sure I wouldn't get in and started to look for a job for me in a bank, so this was a wake up call. I went for the interview and I barely said a word, the dude doing the interview somehow thought I fitted the course. Well, I still don't know how I got in, but I still owe that tutor a pint! So I studied animation, graphic design and illustration for two years, cleaned up my act and found I guess the combination of all the things I loved: graffiti, skate graphics and animation. Around this time I became aware of the “Giant has a Posse” stickers; I was intrigued, it seemed to connect all the things that I was into but with no reason-I liked the methods and strong imagery he employed. I started hand-drawing characters out on cheap vinyl from hardware stores, they lasted well and I got a thirst for putting them up, it didn't take long before I was sticking up more than I could draw, so I started drawing directly onto found objects, disused adverts, any and everything. I wanted to keep the stickers on lock, so I taught myself how to screen print and then I could keep up with my own demand, but before long I wanted to go bigger, so I started to draw large posters and stat them up. I was now working as a design/illustrator; this gave me access to loads of facilities that I could rinse the life out of for free. Eventually, I decided to jack the full-time design job I had; it was eating up more of what I saw as precious vandal time, so I quit to focus on my own work and that was about three years ago.

I've always been confused with this Finders Keepers thing. It's a crew, a show, an annual thing? Drop the science por favor.
It's a crew first: me, Mysterious Al, PMH! and Dave the Chimp. We kept meeting at various events and enjoyed getting drunk and rowdy together and we were all into each others work. One night me and PMH! ranted on about doing an illegal street event-the next day roughed up a plan to take over an abandoned building, to invite fellow street art friends to draw on found objects within a five-day period, turn up the secret location to hang the work on the building, kick back, drink beer and give all the work away for free at the end of the night. It wasn't until the building was covered with work by 10 artists and about 150 people turned up to try and take a piece home, did we realize what we'd created-s**t was off the leash! We followed that up with a second and third show on the same loose idea and it's just grown from that.

You guys are one of Europe's most notorious street art crews. Is it a tough job getting smashed at your own openings and causing mayhem wherever you find yourselves?
A tough job! What, drawing and painting strange characters and dark monsters on walls all over Europe, hanging with friends, getting blind drunk rowdy, dancing round with our trousers round our ankles and putting up our work all over the city we're in! Yeah, it's real hard work, but I guess someone has to do it!

One of the most impressive moves you've made recently (to me at least) was to have Mr. Seen himself christen your gallery. The all-out godfather of NYC graffiti who has never had a show in the UK and you jump your gallery off with the king. That's a good look.
When I thought about launching the space, I wanted to kick the first show with someone that represents the scene from pretty much its birth. For me and for so many SEEN represents that; his influence on my work, whilst maybe not directly visible, has been huge. It made sense to launch the space with an artist who's influenced so many artists, it historically puts all subsequent shows in context-this is where we've come from and these are the vast directions the work and artists are going in now. He already knew and liked what I was doing, was into what I was trying to achieve with the gallery, and agreed to show here in the UK for the first time. He really became part of the Institute and a friend. Thanks again Richie, Sally and Phetus.

Has Europe in general been cracking down on graff and street art?
London and Europe used to be relatively easy to hit; certainly somewhere like Barcelona was like a black book city, everything was good to get. About five years ago, London for posters and stickers was fair game, but the CCTV in the city has gone beyond a joke-every corner has at least one camera on it-on an average journey across London you get filmed 40 times. That's made it very difficult, but not impossible to put work up. For me it's about re-thinking; using new methods and techniques in order to propagate your work. The London councils have taken the idea of zero tolerance seriously, even fly posting (bill stickers) are being hit with heavy fines and ASBOS (antisocial behavior orders) which means what was once not perceived as vandalism is now viewed differently. As for the rest of Europe I hear stories about Barcelona and Berlin being tightened up, some frightening s**t from Berlin, but whenever I go there I just get busy, I mean you have a different perspective on a city and its possibilities when going as an outsider and visitor.

Do you think that the street art scene in general will be able to adapt to environment changes (surveillance, police crackdowns) and keep getting up?
I hope so, it has to keep evolving. Observing the environment, the constraints and adapting to them, that in itself keeps things fresh. I mean if you go, oh, there's too much surveillance to put my work up now, then that's it, game over, but if you think, ok, I have less time, I need to work quickly, prepare something in advance, hit it up and get out, then you'll keep on adapting and evolving your work. For me that's a challenge not a constraint.

Is your wife down for all this?
Yeah man, I can't give enough credit to my wife, she's been a continued support and encouragement to me and my work, she knows what I'm about and is one of the few people I truly trust to “spot” for me. It helps that she knows the scene and documents it by writing articles for various magazines. She's truly down. Most of my close friends call her E*Face, I'm lucky that I found a beautiful woman who understands and encourages me in what I do.

What are some of the challenges of being an active street artist and simotaneously run a gallery?
I didn't think there would be any, but I learnt differently, quickly! Putting my name to the gallery gave the local authorities someone to focus on who was openly supporting what they want to eradicate. The problem is, how do they, or anyone define graffiti? An arcade shop down the road painted large cherries on the front of their building, I saw that as visual pollution, but they obviously let it happen, whereas if we had approached them and wanted to paint a much more interesting piece on the front of the building, you can sure as hell bet they wouldn't allow it. It's amazingly contradictory, they've been quick to dismiss us as a valid gallery, yet haven't even been down to see the content of the shows, basically they want us to disappear! It's also an issue of time, the gallery takes up a lot of time, trying to manage my work and run the gallery is more than enough for two people, so trying to keep on top of it all is a challenge, but hell, it's a good one! It's all credit to the people and my partners involved: Big H, Paul, Kev and Mysterious.

What's in the future for D*face?
Keep on keeping on. Simple really! I've got some new stuff to put up, bombing with 3D characters, which is another level for my work, a sneak preview in these pages. I have a figure out in July with Adfunture, I'm also working with them on another figure for next year which for me was the fulfillment of a dream; to turn what I'd created in two dimensions into a 3D standalone figure. I've also got some stuff in the pipeline with Kangol, if that comes off it will be straight ill and I'm working with an animation company on a joint personal project, that's going to be crazy.

What's in the future for Inside Outside Institute?
Mainly to be able to continue to show the amazing work of artists from all over the world. This year's booked solid with a show a month, each show being really different from the last, to keep on flipping people's perceptions of what they think and expect to be on show. I'd like to see the Outside Institute grew to an even bigger space, enabling us to have a permanent collection on display. I also think the UK collective show “A Few of our Favourite Fiends” would travel really well and I'd like to be able to take that to a wider audience abroad.

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sold0ut
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Re: Vapors Mag D*Face Interview
« Reply #1 on Mar 2, 2008, 12:47am »

anyone got a spare i could nab of ya? moneys of course....? pm me

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