Some recent reflections
Sometimes you have to pause, take a moment to reflect and look back over everything you’ve achieved in your life and ask yourself - am I telling my story correctly? I’ve spent the best part of the last 2-decades aspiring to be a full time artist, based on my idea of what that looks like and how you’re supposed to project that out into the world. I last updated the look and feel of this website 9-years ago based on that vision, and in the process omitted a lot of what I now realise are the most crucial parts of my story.
It’s truly weird trying to maintain and be some outdated vision of myself when my current reality is so wildly different. There’s a huge sense of disconnect. I’m so grateful that I took this time to revisit this site and allow myself the most objective overview of my career possible because it’s brought me a new sense of peace and excitement.
I started out in graffiti in the early 90’s and it remains the foundation of a lot of what I do. Getting arrested for painting trains in 1998 compelled me to organise the first Disrupt The System event in 2000 to show the positive aspects of the culture to a broader audience. That event led to the formation of Disruptiv Ltd with Jonny “Pest 5” Wartmann and Deirdre Dawson, a commercial art business that became the springboard for us launching New Zealand’s first graffiti magazine, first dedicated graffiti gallery and we also started a small Hip-Hop record label. I also worked on a lot of cover art and design for other local Hip-Hop artists.
The first Disrupt the System event in Aotea Square, Auckland 2000. Photo by Jamie McCready.
During that time I also began work on a book featuring New Zealand graffiti artists discussing their work and process. After two trips to Germany with my crew TMD to battle in the Write4Gold competition (we won both years, 2006 and 2008) I shifted my focus to finding my voice in both my studio practise and large outdoor murals. This turned into close to 15 years of traveling the world painting mural festivals, commercial projects, exhibiting my work and somewhat randomly, shooting and editing music videos for a number of local and international artists.
Painting at Street Prints Papaioea in early 2020. Photo by Yoshitaro Yanagita.
In 2016 I started spending more time in the US and signed on as part of B&A’s original mural roster. 7 years later, after becoming a permanent resident I started working full time at B&A. It’s been a steep learning curve but it’s also a job that draws on much of the aforementioned experience.
There are days where I think about the fact I don’t paint graffiti or murals with the frequency I used to, I don’t travel as much and my studio output is also much slower. I’m a parent now and my priorities and responsibilities have changed. I’ve spent a long time chasing a vision of the artist I thought I needed to be and not appreciating the artist I am. Taking this chance to reflect, I realise the totality of everything I’ve worked on over 3 decades is my artistic practise - I’m especially proud of the the more collaborative projects, the things that have involved many people and been cultural touch points. My work as an agent has been great in that regard too, being behind the scenes, advocating for other creatives and also learning about parts of the industry I wasn’t previously privy to.
I’ve updated this site to tell this story better, to share more and also shine a light on the various collaborators I’ve worked with along the way. I’ll continue updating each section with past and upcoming projects as I organise the content, so keep checking back!