5 questions to 5 artists.
Ready? 3,2,1 go!
Tell me five words you love and five you hate.
Kid Acne: “You are an amazing artist”/”You should be more successful”
Sam3: I can resume to you also in 1 word, love freedom – hate nonsense.
Motorefisico: We love every word with a special feeling for “motorefisico”.
Scorpion Dagger: I love these words for no other reason other than they’re monosyllabic (I love one syllable words), and fun to say: Pants, Goof, Booze, Dude, Sweet. I hate these words because annoying people I know obsess over them: Intelligence, Controversial, Globalist, Edgy, Deep State.
Madame: I love: WORDS, NATURE, FIGHT, NOSTALGY, SURPRISE. I hate: INTOLERANCE, STUPIDITY, IMPOSSIBLE, RAIN, INDIFFERENCE.
What is the best thing about the city you came from?
Kid Acne: My friends.
Sam3: I came from a small village and the best thing is that I scaped from there.
Motorefisico: Caos, traffic, the fact that living in Rome it’s not for everyone.
Scorpion Dagger: Montreal is an extremely creative, fun, and affordable place to live. It has an openness and feels that makes it truly unique to North America.
Madame: THE FOOD!
How and When did you start “making art”?
Kid Acne: I have made art in some shape or form for as long as I can remember. I’ve always drawn. Drawing is probably my preferred form of communication in all honesty. I began painting graffiti when I was 12 and shortly after, I began making fanzines and comics. I learned to screen print when I was 15 and made my first record when I was 17. I designed and printed the sleeves myself. The same year, I exhibited my first canvas in a group show called ‘Graffiti Bastards’ in Birmingham, UK. From there, I got my first commercial jobs, designing club flyers, T-shirts and record sleeves for other people, which lead to more work, while simultaneously painting Graffiti and Street Art. All these outlets have informed my ‘style’. I’ve been steadily refining that style over the past 20 – 25 years.
Sam3: I never did art i just draw.
Motorefisico: After that one of us, Gianmaria, almost died for a bacterium in his brain. When he resurrected, we decided to do something of our life. Our first drawings have been made under a bridge three years ago.
Scorpion Dagger: I’ve been making art for as long as I can remember. My parents were always great at encouraging my brother and I to express ourselves through creativity.
Madame: I started when i was a kid because i come from an artistic familly. My granpa was a painter and my dad as well. So my parents put me in front of paper and colors rather than TV.
What are you proposing here for the Outdoor Festival?
Kid Acne: The brief we were given this year was ‘Heritage’. I was thinking about our current place within the timeline of history and how we’ve arrived at where we are today. I was also thinking about my own role within the narrative of Graffiti and Street Art and where my work fits into the bigger picture of this huge, international movement. I have painted a slogan that reads HERE WE ARE. In the context of the exhibition, both the artist and audience have undoubtedly taken different routes in life, yet for this brief moment, we have come together and arrived at the same point within this physical space, so HERE WE ARE (but how did we get here?). For me, it is also about acknowledging the present moment as well as whatever life throws at us, all the nonsense in the world that we can’t control – “Well, here we are. So, I guess we had better make the most of it!”. The artwork will last for 1 month before it is painted over. It’s ephemeral. I like that. It makes it more special somehow.
Sam3: It’s a video I did when I was living in Rome for a while, the video justifies itself.
Motorefisico: For the Outdoor we have drawn something that could be confusing. Our work is called “Labirinto Semplice” (Easy Labyrinth”) and it’s a hallway where you can lose yourself.
Scorpion Dagger: Landscapes, scenes of nature, interrupted.
Madame: I’m proposing a new way to interprete the michelangelo’s Pieta, with the light of my modern culture. Just a way to create dialogue between past and present, as i usually do in my work.
What do you see in the future?
Kid Acne: I have no idea what the future holds, but I hope it involves more projects like, where people are brought together in real life, rather than just through social media. The internet is a fantastic tool and has lots of positives in terms of connecting us, but has a lot of negatives too. I don’t think it’s good to be experiencing so much of life through tiny screens with preordained algorithms. From a creative perspective, I plan to continue exploring the ideas currently present in my work – the slogans, the architectural studies and the female warriors (known as Stabby Women). I’m also working on a new Kid Acne music project. Don’t call it a comeback!
Sam3: Human bones.
Motorefisico: In an hour we’ll be at lunch. It’s difficult to see further.
Scorpion Dagger: I’m an optimist, so I see things, on a whole, getting better; Even Though, oftentimes, it doesn’t feel that way.
Madame: I love the surprises!
Madame
Scorpion Dagger
Motorefisico
Sam3
Kid Acne