HORROR

HORROR – A BESTIARY AT THE CROSSROADS OF GRAFFITI AND NATURAL SCIENCE

August 2019 – 4375 words

COURSE

When did you take your first steps in the street?

I started painting in the street even before I was an artist. I've always drawn, and art classes were my favorite in middle school because they were more recreational and playful, appealing to the most personal aspects of each individual. I enjoyed finding my own style, while at the same time I was beginning to discover graffiti and tags, which had fascinated me ever since I first saw them on the highway as a kid.

A professor encouraged me during an interview to pursue this path, because I imagined myself doing... character design in video games. So it was when I started high school that I began studying graphic design. A friend, who had gone to Auguste Renoir High School to study Applied Arts, met several graffiti artists there and suggested I paint in the street. I had always been fascinated by tagging, and I wanted to know how these people drew, when, and with what materials. He lent me some graffiti magazines, and we bought spray paint in Châtelet. These magazines allowed me to discover my first lettering, but it was the documentary Writers which impressed me the most. Everything became more concrete, the film showing people painting, and allowing you to understand the history of the movement.

At the time, I was living in Cormeilles-en-Parisis, in the 95th district. We would leave in the evenings with the drawings we had done during the day, to bring them from the page to reality. Graffiti has this connection to a territory and an environment, but also to a very adolescent, adventurous side, focused on exploration, on going out at night to experience atmospheres that people don't know. At the same time, high school was a time when I broadened my horizons considerably: thanks to friends and my uncle, I became curious about art history. Culture was a form of self-improvement for me, allowing me to discover new things.

But from that time on, graffiti was always in the background. We'd get together with friends to paint a piece of land in an abandoned place, go out at night on highways or railway tracks, which very quickly became a way of life, a kind of addiction. At the end of high school, I enrolled in a Fine Arts program at Paris 1. For me, it was a way to reconnect with this artistic aspiration, without thinking that I could associate it with graffiti, which for me was a world of its own.

What made you switch from graffiti to figurative drawing?

First, I would say boredom, because when you start graffiti there's a very academic aspect to it: first mastering the tag, then the flop, then the graffiti, in a very linear progression. Even when you move on to graffiti, everything remains a question of mastery: the sketch, then the choice of colors, the outline, the lights And outlines. It was during this time that I discovered incredible artists like Horfe, who in the 2000s broke down the barriers of this discipline and made me understand that I could add figurative or organic elements by incorporating motifs from other cultures such as... comics, painting or cinema. Graffiti then broke free from this constraint of a predefined style, like the wild style, or even the style old And middle school.

At university, I also discovered new artists who strongly influenced me. My first real artistic experience dates back to that time, and to an exhibition at the Petit Palais featuring Klimt, Kokoschka, and Schiele. Schiele's work with lines was a revelation; its angular and organic quality deeply moved me. Gradually, I realized I could incorporate these influences into my graffiti, and this materialized with the arrival of Montana's low-pressure spray cans. It became possible to achieve very fine lines, like those of Horfe or Sirius, who used a specific technique. Until then, spray paint had been a limitation for me, because even the lines... skinny were too thick, and without stencils it was difficult to get close to the feel of the drawing.

This personal re-evaluation of graffiti also led to a change of tag, allowing me to move towards a more figurative style. I kept the R and the O, two letters I liked, going from Arow to Horor. The double O allowed me to add new elements: indeed, in the history of graffiti, the O is a letter that has often been used to introduce other motifs. Many old-school graffiti artists would place an apple or a star on it… With the arrival of the internet, I also discovered other styles, which inspired me to create something more personal in response, reflecting on how to integrate drawing into lettering.

A BOMB OF BLACK, A BOMB OF WHITE

Was it important for you to keep the bomb as a medium?

The spray can has a magical quality, like paint being projected without touching the wall. I've always been fascinated by all the possibilities it offers, its speed, the movement involved. There's a gestural quality to using a spray can that you don't get with other tools. The technical dimension it evokes also impresses me, and I wonder how certain effects are achieved, like a painter might wonder which brush was used. Finally, you can go over the same area again and again, but you'll never completely control your stroke. This random and accidental aspect is also found in watercolor, working with broad strokes and letting the color flow freely.

Why do you prefer to create in black and white?

From the beginning, I was more interested in line than in color. I think the history of art is divided between artists who had a particular sensitivity for making hues resonate, and those who focused more on line, like two different archetypes. I've always been more sensitive to line, even in the work of others, although I admire the great colorists, the Fauvists, and the Impressionists. It's something I can't quite achieve, even though I work a little with watercolor (which offers me a more organic relationship with color).

I find that the line offers something simpler and more personal, almost an imprint of the artist's personality, because no two will be identical. That's why I was so amazed when I discovered Schiele's work: by following his lines, tracing the trajectory of the stroke, you truly reconstruct the man's personality. This power of the line is found throughout the history of creation, from cave paintings to printing.

It's actually surprising to note that in graffiti, colors are often used to camouflage certain flaws in technique or line work. Bando explained that graffiti is all about style and technique: chrome and black are enough, because the letters and outlines can't lie. Black and white has this simple and direct aspect, without embellishment: for this reason, it's currently my language.

What role does movement play in your work?

Everything is movement in the line, which then becomes the synthesis of an inner gesture, inscribed through power and stroke. In Schiele or Dürer, one feels a vibration. I can spend hours looking at an engraving, at crosshatching or patterns, wondering how to follow the lines millimeter by millimeter. I also think of Asian calligraphy, both choreographic and energetic, concentrated in a single movement.

This liberation of movement in tagging is also spectacular. When I see a beautiful tag, I mentally recreate the artist's movement, the position of their hand, almost like a trance. Tagging is a condensed, visual result of a dance. Mosa theorized this idea, creating work around the choreography of tagging and the dance associated with signing. We're talking about flow for graffiti as for rap, because we find this way of dancing on a beat From time to time, the letters swing and add a touch of emotion. For me, graffiti has always been intrinsically linked to movement, to moving to explore one's line, to running when chased, to climbing walls. Today, working with animals allows me to continue exploring this dimension.

WORKING WITH ANIMALS

How did you come to work more with animals?

At the end of university, I did my master's degree in photography. Fine arts studies do tend to push students in a certain direction, which explains why, to break into this field and be relevant, one must necessarily produce conceptual work with many references. Academic drawing doesn't really have a place there. While traveling, I started taking out my sketchbook to capture the life around me.

I've always had a problem with the human figure: I loved movement, watching people pass by and capturing a posture, whereas I struggled more with portraiture. During nude photo shoots, anatomy and musculature interested me more than the face. In a way, it was a continuation of graffiti, which relies on the articulation of letters. It was in Southeast Asia, while I was there doing a photojournalism assignment, that I realized this preference for drawing. When I sat down with my pens, people would stop and a conversation would begin, whereas photography was a more one-sided act.

I started painting and doing graffiti again, and in 2013 I joined the Art Osons association in the 95th district, where I met other graffiti artists. It was a pivotal moment in my journey, because all my friends had stopped, and I missed that collective energy. It's actually something that's somewhat lacking in street art, where you don't find that kind of exchange as much among beginners. It was around this time, in early 2014, that I started working with Norione and established myself as an artist, even though it took me almost ten years to get there. It's a difficult status to embrace; you can't just declare yourself an artist. It was at that point that I created my first characters, which nevertheless included a lot of anatomical elements.

The pivotal moment in our creative process came during Heritage Days in 2014. We had a studio in an old farmhouse in Courdimanche and were tasked with creating a mural on the wall of an old building. I've always been interested in old, abandoned places. For graffiti artists, it's an intrinsic—and almost fetishistic—approach to explore timeless locations with walls that hold a story. As a painter, when you discover the history of a place, you want to pay homage to it while simultaneously telling a new one, thus respecting the cracks and the stone. It's an aesthetic of ruin and recycling. Corine Pagny, an artist-in-residence, suggested we paint a danse macabre composed of skeletons and horses. We embarked on a large composition of horses in black and white, inserted into a pyramidal structure previously outlined in charcoal. This painting remains a magical moment to this day: several days spent without thinking, drawing directly in black. The power emanating from the whole was evident, very direct, stemming particularly from the presence of the animals and reminiscent of prehistoric cave paintings. It imposed upon me a vision that I knew would stay with me for a long time.

What do these animals bring you?

Animals are a way to reconnect with the wild, with something we miss. I spent hours in anatomy galleries discovering their forms, the diversity of skeletons, like a reminiscence of the pictures we were given as children for a good grade. Each species possesses its own expressiveness that inspires. For me, horses exuded this power, this grace, this emotion. Birds came a little later because I missed traveling. They also allowed me to delve into questions of freedom: during the migrant crisis, I went to the Calais Jungle with other artists to discuss these notions of travel, transit, and migration. At that time, the figures of migratory birds and wading birds became more prominent in my work.

The bird is also intimately linked to my way of painting. fat cap It allows you to create lines that end in points, and I often drew my letters this way, which is reminiscent of beaks or feathers. The desire to let the letters flow in all directions, following the movement, instinctively led me to birds. It was from that moment that I abandoned the human figure.

Many urban artists work with the animal world.

If more and more urban artists are working with animals, it's because we realize they won't last, that we've entered a new phase of species extinction. Having grown up in an urban environment completely centered on humans and industry, we realize how much we miss the wild. We try to cling to it because it's slipping away. In another era, I think I would have loved to be a naturalist, and I believe it was Roa who also spoke of his dream of exploring the world to discover animal species. We're currently experiencing a kind of new naturalism: these animals exist, we know it because they're in our books and documentaries. Yet they no longer live in our cities. We still have the opportunity to see them, but perhaps in a few years they will have disappeared, and I think this is constantly on the minds of artists like Teuthis, Ardif, or Faith XLVII… Painting animals then becomes a search for a timeless dimension. If I am so fond of black and white, it is also because I am very attached to these aesthetics capable of transcending eras.

A FANTASTIC UNIVERSE

This is also an opportunity for you to explore a more fantastical world. Is this a consequence of your drawing style or does it stem from your personal tastes?

I've always enjoyed manga, which often feature this notion of metamorphosis or transformation. As a child, I loved the concept of the werewolf, of a man transforming into an animal or a superhuman. Even in Dragon Ball Z, The fighters transform into super warriors: their muscles swell, veins appear, their hair changes color. These ideas can be found in some video games such as Altered Beast, in which the hero transforms into a bear or a wolf. Finally, there are also major references such as Akira or Miyazaki, who have connections with Lovecraft, or even with Steampunk, and depict real mutations.

The dark side that one might find in your drawings would then come solely from the line work?

I have an obsession with lines, whereas I would prefer to be content with simple forms. Artists like Dürer and Bellmer have instilled in me this Gothic quality, which I associate with anatomy or natural science, sometimes quite morbid. One also thinks of Gustave Doré's engravings, which by definition have a romantic, somber aspect, certainly less joyful and lighthearted than Impressionism. The very act of scraping and scratching with the tool carries this aesthetic.

When I paint an animal, I want to emphasize a certain shape, add black or an opening, and if there's a hole, fill it with a multitude of threads or smoke. This desire to peel back the layers, to remove the outer skin to see what's underneath, is also found in the... Flayed Fragonard's work, with its traumatic images of horses bursting open, their blood vessels filled with resin. Showing what we are inside is something I think about a lot when working with animals. Like all living beings, we are a whole world of liquid, solid, mechanical, and organic elements.

Shadows occupy a special place in your work.

I feel I still have gaps in my knowledge of handling shadows and light, which are things I'm constantly working on. Sometimes I miss the right contrast, or conversely, I apply dark areas where I shouldn't. It might seem easy to paint from a photograph, but with every element you add, you have to consider the light, which I sometimes place too haphazardly. Yet, it's the control of light that gives a drawing or photograph its quality.

I also like these bursts of color that prevent the overall effect from being too clean. Our collaboration with Norione worked because his style is more defined, and we each tempered the other to find an interesting balance. Ardif's animal drawings or Teuthis's work are extremely precise, but when I see the detail of those furs or shells, I know I couldn't reproduce it, that something would have to diverge at some point. I'm always tempted to create a blend of everything I know, a display of technique. Here again, we find this idea of metamorphosis and impermanence. A closed drawing would be unnatural to me: the vibrancy that emanates from it will also be a reaction to the sometimes morbid aspect found there, and will allow me to play on the duality between life and death, between the inert and the moving.

A LOOK AT THE STREET

What does the street represent for you now?

The street is fundamentally linked to childhood, a place of adventure and exploration. When you're in elementary school, sleeping over at your best friend's house and sneaking out the window, you're confronted with yourself for the first time. Your parents don't know, so you hide behind cars. It's also a gateway to the imagination: as a child, the night is another world for you, everything tells a new story, and every house could be inhabited by monsters.

As you get older, the street reveals multiple realities. There's the one you take every day on your way to work or school, and the one you explore. Graffiti constantly questions the act of appropriating your environment. When you spot a wall, you visualize your graffiti like an advertising artist before going back to paint it. The appropriation is then very powerful because you're adding color to these walls, devoid of any form of expression, thereby bringing life to this architecture. Unlike gray, concrete facades, old stone walls retain a certain sensitivity: there are people who couldn't care less about graffiti but who notice that a particular stone was laid by someone. Putting your tag on a dull wall is a way of saying you exist, and I always feel safer in a tagged place because I know people live there.

What is your relationship with photography?

Several things come into play: the location, the time I have available, my equipment. When I started painting, photography was simply an archive for me. There wasn't this imperative and urgency to publish on social media. For a long time, I painted less, but took a lot of photos of graffiti during nighttime outings. For me, getting beautiful images was just as important as creating a good piece of graffiti. I liked to photograph trucks and awnings to highlight the painting within its environment. Photography can be interesting when it manages to convey something more than the artwork itself. Recently, for a painting in Tunisia, I felt I needed to create a photograph that went beyond the painting. I returned to the location at night, with a multitude of candles, so I could take a long break. After an hour of setting up, I rediscovered the atmosphere, and the photograph thus became an independent work in dialogue with the painting.

What is your relationship to the ephemeral nature of your work?

The ephemeral is ever-present, because we know that even the most beautiful wall won't last, that a tag could be erased the next day, or that it might last a year. When I started, I wondered how old the half-erased paintings were. Imagination still played a significant role: who? when? where? how? A degree of personal projection is added to these questions.

But what truly matters is memory, which the ephemeral evokes—memory that, in my opinion, is more present and intrinsic to tagging and graffiti than to street art, because one still occasionally discovers ghosts of tags twenty years old. When I took the train to Saint-Lazare, I would see old Shoe lettering alongside much more recent tags. This juxtaposition of layers is fascinating, as is the necessary humility that emanates from the ephemeral. Even if some places are more or less exposed, the act of painting in the street condemns the work to disappear in the short or medium term, regardless of the energy and passion invested in its creation.

Why would graffiti have this memory and not street art?

I think the relationship to history is very different in both cases. Graffiti has its own codes: you shouldn't paint over another artist's work, or if you do, there's a kind of hierarchy that respects both established artists and the locations themselves. The goal isn't to create something that will be seen by the masses, but rather to seek out the right place and atmosphere. In this sense, the graffiti artist is truly a site-specific artist, who appreciates both busy streets and abandoned areas, albeit for different reasons. Some taggers want to leave their mark everywhere, but as discreetly as possible, in hidden spots, so that it lasts longer. Conversely, you sometimes get the impression that the street artist creates a piece knowing it will be photographed. They've internalized this notion of ephemerality much more because they know that this image, once archived, can be added to their portfolio.

This doesn't mean that street art has no history; in a way, it stems from interventions in the street, whether political, social, or otherwise. However, graffiti and tagging are, for me, more instinctive and primal, whereas street art often seeks a concept, adopting an overly conventional approach. A history constructed in this way will therefore inevitably be more artificial.

But doesn't the graffiti artist also seek to stand out?

The ego trip of graffiti artists is enormous, probably even more so than among street artists. But when I started out, I felt they weren't as concerned with consensus. Emulation and competition are more about having the best style, with nothing to gain other than peer recognition. The fact that there was no money in graffiti in its early days, and nothing but a quest for identity and self-expression, is a founding element of the movement. Nobody gives me a voice, I don't exist in the eyes of others, so I'm going to write my tag everywhere like a dog peeing.

In other respects, graffiti is particularly elitist. It frequently happens that altercations occur once you're on a tag, and only the skill level of the graffiti artist can resolve them. By painting more figurative things, this relationship with others has inevitably evolved. I find it enriching to have the opinion of someone who isn't part of the scene, because their perspective is fresher. I've also criticized graffiti for the fact that, while it speaks of freedom and openness, it stifles diverse viewpoints and judges what can—or cannot—be part of them.

How do you view this, having switched from one to the other?

It's funny to see people's reactions: they're not very receptive to graffiti and lettering, but as soon as they see a character, they notice it, and if it's a realistic eye, they find it magnificent. I've done lettering for a long time and I enjoy it, but I also want to reach as many people as possible. My guiding principle from the beginning, whether in photography or drawing, is that the viewer should feel something.

From my first large-scale street collages in 2015/2016, I discovered the public's various reactions. I would sit in a corner and watch the passersby who saw this apparition. There's something gratifying about touching both parents and children. Moreover, as an artist, there's a large element of projection: I want to speak to the young person passing by to stimulate their imagination. In the Fantastic Bestiary of Street Art, This interesting idea of reintroducing fantasy into the everyday consciousness of people in cities is particularly relevant here. It's therefore very important for a child to focus on a drawing or some colors, as this will stay with them for a while.

That's also why I run workshops with Arts Osons and get involved in community organizations. I could be the child I work with, and I would have loved to grow up in a city filled with artworks that made me look up and gave me food for thought. Planting a seed, sharing art with people, have become increasingly important to me over the years. Making art accessible to everyone is a way of seeing art as a form of elevation. On another level, painting in an abandoned place also carries the idea that one day someone else will arrive and be all the more surprised by this apparition, as I imagine the first adventurers who entered the Chauvet and Lascaux caves were.

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