I was born and raised in New York City's graffiti dreamland. A child of the 80s, roaming the streets in pursuit of adventure. Influenced by chaos, alienated by peers. I spent most of my time in my room drawing and painting, creating my unreal reality.
At the age of eleven I took a knife and carved my initials into a tree. It changed my life and my artistic approach. Six months later I found myself doing motions (painting on NYC trains as they left the station). Fifteen years after that, my mark can be seen in every neighborhood and every borough. You walk by it everyday on your way to work, I am part of New York's landscape and few would deny that I am a graffiti legend.
Looking back, I never imagined that my art crimes would lead me to find myself as an artist.
I leave my tag in the streets and only carry over the action, energy and prolific nature to my painting.
I am a hybrid abstractionist. Cross breeding artistic styles to create new compositions. Combining realistic drawings with abstract forms, layering on top. Integrating seemingly inconsistent styles, cutting and pasting my own drawings. Setting a double vision Van Gogh in a graffitied Byzantine space. I question time and space by layering impressions of delayed motion, painting over images and using a double-point technique.
I paint pictures of pain. I paint who we really are. Humans as animals, animals as humans. I strive to be honest about where I have come from. Growing up I was exposed to a world of violence and drugs. I watched people destroy themselves and lived a heartless life. Now I work to serve as a reference through my art. I believe that we are all connected so if I paint what I feel I am really painting what you feel. You might not have the same view point as me or identify directly with the subject matter but the intensity of emotion will allow you to connect with the work intuitively.
When it comes to selecting materials I am unbiased. I use anything and everything that comes into my path and into my pocket. From the garbage to my kleptomaniac alter ego. Any material, any surface. I work seven days a week, 365 days a year. I set goals for myself. I believe work ethic is one third of what an artist is and that only through hard work and determination can any visual discoveries occur. I finish five to ten drawings a day and complete three works on wood a week. And, while you're sleeping I do my advertising.
I have been chosen. When there is no vision the people perish. We live in negative times where vision has been replaced by advertisement and product. Most music and art does not say anything. Poisoning the people with ideas of drugs and violence or plaguing them with melancholy. I was poisoned for a long time, hurting myself and others. I received a second chance and in return I strive to create vision.