A large pile

Well it’s been a great few days, the weather has been great, St Ottilien is an amzingly peaceful and beautiful spot and the people have been amazingly helpful, chill and entertaining. Arrived after a hectic couple of weeks in Stavanger for Nuart and a really break neck stop in London on route to Munich.to say this monastery is a change of pace is to understate it. Curated by Vis a Vis with the hleping hand of Loomit the mission for 12 artists was to paint large scale works around the Monastery outside of Munich. Yes thats what i thought, crazy. as it turns out not so crazy the works work well around the place and the artists have really taken the theme of heaven meets earth into their murals….I know what your thinking…what on earth was i going to paint….me too. So i squared it with them first that it would be ok to paint a massive pile of trash. So far so good. So half way through a massive pile of trash, its 12 feet high, (see pics below) i had just finished for the night when the producer of the festival a nice guy called Al;exander came up to me and said “where’s the rabbits?”
“That’s funny” i said “the guy who’s wall it was was asking where the rabbits were too”. (hes a butcher and the building is a slaughterhouse, makes good sausage apparently) The producer says “you said you were going to paint a pile of rabbits”I nearly shit myself laughing, No mate a pile of Rubbish!
To bring it on message with the projects title i added the boy writing “we were given paradise” as much to make a comment on them letting me paint as to make trash on their walls as the general decline of the world into detritus entropy.  (just a construction shot below to give you some scale)

Thanks to all those who made this possible especially Father Cyrill, Christian, and Alexander who has more rabbit than sainsburys.

Up Market trash

New bags for Japan show, cutting of the Chanel bag from the show and the test sprays of 3 more up market trash bags. Show opens on the 2nd of August at :

GYPSY EYES GALLERY

2-21-12 Jingumae Shibuya-ku

Tokyo 180-0001 JAPAN

Japanese Rubbish

Heres a short film we made to promote the show in Japan, the show is on the 2nd of August at the :

GYPSY EYES GALLERY

2-21-12 Jingumae Shibuya-ku

Tokyo 180-0001 JAPAN

It should be fun with the crew of Fuji rock joining the opening for their last nights in japan. see you there

Naeba

So first couple of days on site at Fuji Rock Festival and the site is taking shape. up in the mountains, its hot as hell, but we ain’t complaining. The hospitality is amazing, incredible sushi at squishy’s (i presume its a nick name), and hot geo thermal baths after every  days work and i though i was at a festival, feels like a holiday camp! The sideshows are slowly taking shape and the collection of sideshows and attractions are going to work really well together. We even have a group of indian fakirs coming from india to eat light bulbs and generally amaze us with their feats of strength.

Tea time for the crew….none of that green stuff for our crew, someone brought a industrial box of yorkshire tea with them.

Last minute dash for the plane

So been beavering away, making stuff for Fuji Rock festival and getting the show together for Tokyo on the 2nd of August. The shippers have just taken the canvases, the spray paints ordered and last minute prizes for the high strikers are being made. I wouldn’t of guessed that i would have traveled to japan for the first time with a fire bell and a large rubber mallet in my bags but that’s the life of a traveling showman for you. The above shot is the last frame in of a time lapse that Calum and Saft films helped make to promote the Show, should be posted online soon (hi res version here). Well thats almost it, got the last mad run around picking up the odds and sods for both the High Strikers and the show and then its on the plane, the next post will be from Japan, but here’s a sneak peek at some of the new work for the show in japan.

Tools of the trade with the carrier of choice….lol

NHH 75 years old

Been in Bergen for a week now running production on an interesting project put together by Nuart and NHH (norwegian school of economics). Ben Eine, M-city, Dolk Escif and Huyro have been marking the walls and sowing the seeds of doubt in the next generation of Norwegian economists in a project entitled Fuck Capitalism 

NHH Norwegian School of Economics is the leading business school in Norway and it is repeatedly ranked among the top 40 business schools in Europe. The school was founded in 1936 and celebrates its 75 years anniversary in 2011.

To challenge this perception of NHH, the school has in collaboration with Stavanger’s Nuart festival invited some of the world’s most renowned street artists to comment on NHHs ideological foundations on the schools huge walls. The artistic comments from the street artists will be supported by an academic program of presentations and panel debates taking place at NHH on September 6th.

Stavanger report

So the project i was working on in Bergen was postponed due to the sad imbecile who decided to try and go down in history through incredible acts of stupidity and cruelty in Oslo last week. I won’t dwell on it but the best thing we can do in reaction is to ignore the sad fuck and commiserate with those affected. Anyhow after a brief stop in Bergen i flew to Stavanger to paint the canvases bought during the Outside in show, luckily the postponement gave me extra time to furfil the mountains of orders placed at the gallery. Thanks Stavanger i feel really loved. Of course because i was stuck in the studio the sun decided to shine, why o why couldn’t done that for the last time when i was stuck up a cherry picker for 60 hours. Today it became too much and i had to get out on the street and put something up (as you can see above). The police even drove past, slowed down waved and continued on their way…you gotta love this town.

Banging them out in the Numusic office.

This week Stavanger was host to the tall ships race, the harbor was chock a block with boats of all shapes and sizes, with the largest tall ship in the world in attendance. Walking along the harbor side was like being transported back to the 1700’s a really cool festival.

Eine’s dry

So it was with full fear we went to bergen to paint a wall with Eine and Steph. Not because they are scary but because we were attempting to paint a bloody big wall in the wettest part of the west coast. Famous for the rain, the town had experienced almost 2 months relentless rain pior to our trip. Ben arrived and the clouds parted….lucky basturd! I was straight (?) from Glastonbury and Ben and steph from Roskida, battle weary and soaked the sun made a decent change. Ben smashed the wall in 3 days. Contraversial calculate cash.

On the hop or “Look Ma no Stencils”

It’s been a hard week, 16 hour days in the wind and the rain, and all too seldom the sun. After 3 days helping Ben Eine in Bergen (traditionally the wettest city on the west coast) in the blazing sunshine, i was hopeful that Stavanger would deliver the same. WRONG! The building above is the Lervig brewery, yes i got given the keys of a brewery and painted a bloody wall. Talk about couldn’t organise a piss up in a… Mike, the master brewer even offered me use of the company fridge! Hard to get enthusiastic for getting drunk in the rain 8m in the air in a cherry picker…..DAM.  Dodging raindrops the size of 50mm shells meant working through the night, in the vain hope that the forecasts were right. WRONG! But its nearly there and i”ve only a day more tweaking and introducing some stencil elements. The still above is from Martin Hawks, (Saft films) during the week he road tested some new camera equipment out and produced some stunning time lapse (with a difference!!) . He must of shot 1000’s of frames and each nights brought its own weather logistics, cameras don’t seem to like the rain much either. But wait till you see it…..beautifully filmed. Thanks to Carl for the shots below…again stunning, and of course the Nuart crew, and Reed productions for setting the whole thing up.

Why oh why?

Had to share this with you all, craziest tattoo i’ve ever seen, even more weird if you know who’s leg its on! I ain’t telling, if you know you know, still a bonkers tattoo!