While rummaging through an old shoebox of photos, I discovered a few snaps from my short-lived stenciling phase. These date from around about 2001 as a result of seeing some Banksy stuff for the first time (that's Banging Your Head era Banksy, rather than coffee-table Banksy if I'm after cool points).I really like how the 'Bombora' skateboard turned out in particular. I know it's a bit rubbish to be buying blank decks as the skate industry needs all the help it can get, but I used to love painting up my own shred sled. Makes me want to have another bash. The portrait is of my friend Walker and was just an attempt at creating a multi-layered stencil from a photograph. I quite like how it looks on the wood.
OK, so they're not anything special, but boy I'm glad I didn't jump fully into the whole 'McDonalds sucks, war sucks, CCTV is everywhere' gig that was so prevalent at the time. Actually that stuff is still raging pretty hard on the street art scene. Not that there's anything wrong with the message, but jeez, enough with the tanks and flowers already. Maybe cut out the terrible puns while you're at it.
i saw a few nice things on abandoned old buildings whilst out on a wander today. completely know what you mean about the overdone raging against the machine message. it has a place, but still.
ReplyDeleteYou forgot to mention Star Wars imagery you can't be a stencil artist unless you know about Star Wars because apparently Star Wars is a very deep film which works on many different levels people will always find you really interesting if you quote star wars be it in stencil form , a rap record or as a form of cheap comedy.
ReplyDeleteI'm really glad you never entered the stencil dimension!