HOT TRENDS 

Chaz: We helped bringing some of the artists because we know a lot of people. The guy who organized it petitioned the Dutch government. We were instrumental in helping but we can’t take any credit really. We brought in as many artists as we can to come and join the project.

Chaz: No. it is literally just a case of getting as many good artists as we could together. Create a really nice looking place. It is just about fun and the pursuit of excellence.

Chaz: I have painted in Miami during Basel every year for the past five years and Bob has also painted down here in Miami but this is his first time for Basel so this is great. When we work together that is when we really do our best stuff. Flexing muscles. I am really happy Bob’s out here.

Bob: This is based on a painting we did in our studio about a month ago. Chaz drew his characters on this painting and handed it to me. I thought, how can I make this work? I just invented some kind of perspective and then I kind of invented this narrative where I wanted to tell a story about these god-like creatures that were worshipped by this race of people that are kind of like worker bees. An army of happy guys with these big space helmets on. They seem to be at a street party or carnival on the way to board this mother ship. We try to experiment when it comes to telling a story with the painting and the viewer can invent any story so you can interpret it yourself. It is this very happy party.

Bob: We were based in London. I grew up just outside London. We liked the idea of the London police because the actual real police are called the Metropolitan Police and that name hadn’t been taken. We like the idea that we are policing the streets with good art work. That was the idea. And everyone knows the word “London” and the word “police” in any language so that’s quite strong. I can’t take credit for the name. Chaz came up with it.

Chaz: 15 years. The last five, we have probably been doing more stuff on canvas and projects that are actually going out. There comes a certain time when it gets boring and you are repeating yourself. You want to use your time and your artistic energy for other things. If you have the chance to make money off what you do, that is always the best. We love making paintings. The minute you start ding something on a different scale with so much detail you do not want it painted over the next week. It’s not fun. You want it to stay up to entertain and show people what you have done. That’s the whole point. You want to make pieces that will have longevity and be around for hundreds of years almost if it is on canvas.

Chaz: We definitely have a system and we work well together. We know what each other requires. We know what each other desires in the piece. It’s about coming up with a theme and trying to make symmetrical work. Balance it nicely. Bob has been leaning a bit more on these little characters and he is doing architecture rather than drawing portraiture and stuff like that, which he was doing before. I love the portraiture stuff that he did but when it comes to drawing from the imagination then it is something a bit more special because it’s original. There is no substitute for originality in my opinion, in artwork.

Chaz: We have got all sorts of things going on at the moment. A project will hopefully be going on in Belgium where we will paint a commission. We have stuff in Sweden, back in America. We can’t really talk about it. We have to keep it on the low down until it is all definitely happening. You never know. We had this job lined up for Italy last summer and it was gonna happen and they would pay us and we would go over to Italy for two weeks and then all of a sudden it just fell through. It was months of planning and it just didn’t happen suddenly but then, two days before, these people from Luxembourg called us and wanted us to do this project and we ended up doing that and that was brilliant. You never know what’s going to happen. You just do what you can, really. Just stay flexible and try to keep enjoying it.

Chaz: Big cities are always inspiring. I would also like to do something huge in my hometown. Just because it is where I grew up. In Essex. I would like to do my local shops. I would love it. We also love traveling, we love putting things in different countries. I do not particularly have a preference.

Chaz: The graffiti artists out here don’t give too much beef to the graffiti artists from around the world who suddenly show up at their doorstep and start painting everywhere. They seem to embrace that and get involved, too. It’s nice, you can see every type of art from graffiti letter styles to paste ups and kids doing stuff. We advocate a policy of: enjoy yourself. It is not competition for us. We want to make a great piece for people to see. We are happy to be hear in a community of artists, meet people and have fun. I have a lot of respect for the local artists. It is their city. I think the trouble is that some of the biggest cities like New York or London there seems to be some beef between street art and graffiti. I don’t understand it. I mean, it is all under one heading of art to me. As long as people respect each other, I don’t see the problem. That’s just my personal view. We don’t expect everyone to share it. Everyone gets a chance to paint here.

Chaz: Not too bad. I think Shepard Fairey’s stuff got done a few years back but he is a particular case. He doesn’t deserve it but a lot of the graffiti artists target that as a sort of big name making statement. Shepard is actually one of the nicest guys I have met in the whole scene over the years. He has always got time for people and just likes to work and do his thing. He actually has a lot of great respect for a lot of the great graffiti artists. He has got nothing against them. It is interesting how it is all developing and evolving. When my mom and dad had me, they never brought me up to be a lawyer or an accountant. They just brought me up to be myself. In graffiti you have all these different forms of street art that came out and it is funny that people get upset about it. Why is this person doing wheat paste? It is just your child coming from graffiti doing a different thing. It is a seed and you cannot control the seed. Graffiti is how it all started and I have nothing but respect for the art of graffiti but I think everyone should be open minded.

I am really interested in typography. I often use words. I am really interested in words. How they look but also the meaning behind them. Recently I have been reading a lot of books and I read this book called “Eden,” which references a lot C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. The guy who wrote “The Hobbit.” They talk a lot about mythology. They were very interested in mythology. That’s why they were writing these books. They had this idea that myths are echoes of reality. They were talking about this concept of there being echoes of paradise in the world now, so, when you see a beautiful sunset, it is an echo of paradise. When you listen to the story of Cinderella and all ends with happily ever after it is a bit unrealistic in this world but it is actually an echo of a better world. I just find that really exciting. I do believe there are echoes of paradise all around us. It is kind of an encouragement. It is saying “I Remember Paradise.” there is a paradise. It might be a bit messed up in this world but there is something better. That’s what it is trying to say. It is just me really saying what is in my heart. The beautiful colors are reflecting paradise. I think every beautiful thing here is a reflection of that better place.

No.

It’s amazing. The guys here, like all of the people who we have been working with, the team we have been working with, all the other artists, are so amazing and it is so inspiring what they are doing out here. Just such a collaborative vibe. Really about community and very open. Lots of sharing. They have been so welcoming. Really, really nice and so healthy in their creativity. I feel like you really need those things. Creativity rather than closed-ness. That kind of edge you sometimes find, I found it to be the exact opposite here. It has really been inspiring. I am just so amazed to be part of it, really.

It’s funny cause I studied graphic design and illustration in London. I graduated in 2009. It was a weird course because it really pushed the idea of what illustration is, outside of children’s books and traditional stuff. I ended up coming out of that doing lots of different stuff, just kind of applying my aesthetic. I did a lot of commercial work but also my own work. I was really into painting large scale rather than doing small things. I ended up making a lot of large scale work. I like this sense of the epic. Monumental things that really shout louder than something that’s closed in a book. I have never done a wall this big. This is like a giant leap from what I have done before in terms of scale. I am really happy and I am loving it.

I have a friend who has got a gallery in LA. She comes to London, to art fairs like Frieze and this contemporary African art fair that is very interesting. She came two months ago for Frieze and when she comes we always chat about my work and what I am doing. We just kind of share interests and inspiration. I showed her around my studio and she is friendly with Jeffrey Deitch, who curated this project here in Wynwood. She told him about me and, basically, he liked my work and I got to do it.

I do, yes. I don’t exhibit as much as I would want to because you have to pay the bills so I have done a lot of commercial stuff but I do exhibit. When did I last exhibit? In Shoreditch this summer at Hoxton Gallery. Right now I am just kind of going from thing to thing. I am trying to get some funding from the Arts Council for a project all about African and Caribbean hairstyles. My husband is a barber. We have decided on this collaboration, which we call “Bros with ‘Fros,” which is a t-shirt collection at the moment. For the moment it is just a commercial thing but I really want to explore it deeper and really get underneath the whole history and culture of the hairstyling. I just find it really interesting. I have done research into European ethnographic research. Back in the day they would do all this research and measure people’s heads and they would take samples of people bodies to label people. I was really interested in the idea of reversing that. Often they took hair samples because hair was an easy thing to package up and send off. Hair, often, in many cultures, has a kind of mystic quality and a magical quality so it is a really weird thing. They were actually stealing bits of people and then taking it home and then saying “this means this and this and this” and labeling it. I was quite interested in the idea of reversing that and re-labeling African Caribbean hair. I am just celebrating it for all the beauty and the craft and the skill involved in the hairstyling. Hopefully in the beginning of the new year that will all have produced a body of work.