Urban & pop art at Lamberty’s

Who would of thought it, me showing Trash in Belgravia… but it’s true. Just to prove it frequent collaborator Joe Giacomet and I made the flyer as well as some bloody nice Swag for the show. In true Sw1 fashion there are beautiful girls serving Champagne cocktails, some entertainment and a whole load of art from an extinguished list of artists… Show opens on the 17th of October, more info to follow.

Beach Paint jam Mallorca

Widewalls curated a soon to be demolished hotel in a small bay in Mallorca, In less than 48 hours 9 artists covered the crumbling hotel with some amazing artworks. Artists: Nick Walker, Dotmasters, Loomit Conor Harrington, Lucy McLaughlan, Zadok, Sickboy, Banek, Ezequiel

Remember Easter?

It was such a crazy weekend with so many friends in front and behind the camera. Saft films  shot and edited it, Hidden sound did all the sound and Widewalls organised the whole thing.

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.

Inevitable show blurb

High Class Trash

A show of beautifully hand crafted stencil works that discover the beauty amongst our trash. Photo real renditions of humble bin bags & high class labels painted on a decades worth of bin and skip raiding. Up-cycled objects, grannies cushions, nothing avoids the Dotmasters’ magpie eye. Mixed media assemblages pop off the wall in a faux 3D skid row tableaux. The frames are off, and work spills from the walls like the piles of trash they depict.

The irony of stencilling piles of rubbish is not lost on us. Rubbish, we all do it… leave it out on the street, either once a week or at random times when consumption out strips our storage. For many it’s their only contribution to the public space. We all contribute to this shifting sea of street sculpture with the rhythms of the weekly bin round. Its an ordered chaos, of suddenly unowned & worthless things.

You can tell a lot about an area from its rubbish, the people that live there, what the eat, what they wear. High Class Trash takes it’s inspiration from the galleries location, that particular mix of trash and glamor that make Notting hill so famous.

The first 13 visitors to the show on the 13th of September will be rewarded with a limited hand finished six colour silk screen print, a release of only 13. Sometimes 13 can be a lucky number.

Private view 13th of September

Show runs till october 5th

284 Portobello Road, W10 5TE, London Tel No. 020 8354 3592

London Solo Show

Nuart 2012

It must be that time of year again, great line up for this my 7th year producing Nuart, particularly excited to have Saber, Eine and Sickboy over…sounds like trouble already!

Last minute painting in Tokyo

A last final dash to a super nice gallery to paint on their walls before i left Tokyo and popped some eyes up for Filthy Luker.

Osaka Rocks!

What can I say? Absolutely bowled over with Osaka! Rode into town on the shingasen super express necking beers with Gaz Mayall who was playing at a club called Stereo. As soon as we arrived were met at the station by the incredible Masa (Japanese on the outside but a true Jamaican to the core). An afternoon guided tour of the underbelly of downtown osaka by Gaz, Elenor and Masa of course accompanied with copious amounts of sake and eating anything from sparrows to poisonous fish, thanks guys you set the mood for the rest of my stay!
Eine had hooked me up with a local contact for finding spots to paint, enter KEN!!! Its hard to explain just how amazing this guy is. Japan is not the easiest place to get a can out, its a straight to jail gig if your caught and at best works are cleaned the next day by the owner, local knowledge is essential and you don’t get any better than Ken and his good friend Masagon ( the ninja assist). With Ken’s brother Takuya as driver we set off on our mission, 4 spots with almost 5 hours driving just to get to them all, in just one day. Of course with Ken as tour manager, masagon as the ninja assist (even had a torch for the last after dark hit) and Takuya at the wheel it was in the bag.

Met some amazing people along the way, ate amazing food and got up across the city. Thankfully the last spot was Stretch a really cool bar where we watched japan trounce the Egyptians (I know how lucky can you get?) Couldn’t of done it with out the OK crew,. Cheers guys! Osaka I love you!

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