Work On Walls
...vans, boards and other flat, vertical surfaces
I painted my first piece in 1983, not long after hip hop had hit the UK with a bang. We gawped wide-eyed as the docu/drama of Wild Style played on the screen of the local arts cinema and flipped out when pieces started appearing on the walls of Bristol.
As fearless teenagers, always hungry for the next thing, we knew we had to be down with this; we wanted to be slick like Dondi in the "Buffalo Gals" video, invincible like Case-2 in "Style Wars". Lee Quinones playing Zorro was a new kind of hero: a street superhero, a trainyard ninja dressed in black.
Back then it was all about Car Plan paint, Cathedral Accessories was the racking spot of choice. Pink paint was the holy grail, a dream. This was pre-Buntlack, before Sparvar reached us from Holland, this was even before Smoothrite Black!
The Crime Inc Crew was born out of our growing passion and was made up of Inkie, my brother Jinx, and myself. Fourth member Nick Walker [at that time writing Wizardo on the other side of town] soon followed and we embarked on a relentless campaign of late night bombing across the city. We didn't do throw ups, we painted full-colour burners, proper ones with characters and backgrounds. It was our weekend ritual. We were up. We were kings! No one hit Bristol like us back then. 23 years later I am as hungry to paint as I ever was and am carving out a career doing so.
As soon as I was big enough to prop myself up against walls I started painting on them. My early works were colourful, abstract and highly expressive. Not much has changed, although I did learn to draw people and things eventually and have continued to do so ever since. My time studying graphics also gave me a love of letterforms.
