KS3 Art and Design: A career as a street artist

A lot of my work is really about themes that are relevant to communities and society as a whole. Something that’s going to benefit people and that’s what really drives me. That’s why I do what I do.

Over a period of around ten years or so I’ve probably painted around 20, 25 murals in the city.

This area here is inner city Birmingham. So I’m brightening up the places so that, bringing a bit of colour because let’s face it in our environments where we live, you know, there’s some grimy old places and grimy old walls that need a bit of uplifting.

Here’s one of the recent walls I’ve painted actually. You can see it just here. And this one reads “Who controls the past controls the future”.

Turning up at a spa and seeing kids looking at the wall or I might turn up and then they might come along and say, oh you did this wall. You know, hearing how they respond is what it’s about for me.

This is a kind of a mock-up of what we’re doing. There’s a huge wall you’ll see. And I paint all that black, I do a circle in the middle and it’s pretty much just the design. It’s just an experimental thing because sometimes you just want a bit of freedom to just explore a little bit and just practice, if you like.

So the chap from this grocery stall here has been saying to me for years, come and do something up there.

Every wall I paint on, I always have permission from the people who own the building. It’s common sense.

Let’s make a dot there first. Say here, yeah.
It’s like using a giant compass I suppose. Like you’d use in maths. Let‘s have look at that.
Not a bad circle man. Ecstatic.

Jordan:
There’s a stigma with a lot of graffiti so it’s nice to kind of break that mould really.

Mohammed:
Jordan’s someone who I’ve known for about ten years, since he was a student. I’ve seen him grow over the years. Working on a large-scale project having someone to support you is necessary. Did Stephen Spielberg makes films by himself or did he have, you know, massive crews to realise the vision.

Oh man you’ve gone outside the line big time.

Jordan:
Yeah, that’s what I mean.
Mohammed:
Oh man. I think best way to hit that now.
Jordan:
I’ll tidy it up a little.
Mohammed:
It’s just probably best to go like. There, that’s probably… extend it a bit so it kind of comes there.

Jordan probably misjudged the line and gone out a bit. It’s not a big deal because we just redraw the lines again… I never mistakes as something which is a negative thing. In fact, it can be something that is liberating and it’s part of being a human being.

If you want it to be nice and easy then this is the wrong game, you know. As a graffiti artist, it really is a kind of an adventure if you like of trying to transform a building. And that’s going to require some effort. So it’s not easy. It’s not the same as designing something on a computer and printing it out. And, you know, and then you sitting back and letting it all happen. But you’ve kind of got to get a bit messy in the process.

I make a living from being a street artist by working with organisations and individuals who want space transformed. And they pay me to do that.

You have to be very organised and conscious not to put yourself in danger. Health and Safety is very important when working.

As an artist people ask me how long did that piece take. It might have taken five days to make. The reality is, it’s probably taken 20 years to make that, of digesting, of learning, of trying something out. Experimenting and shaping and crafting.

I wanted to paint an image of Birmingham, the spirit of a big city, of its industry. It is a place of opportunity. This painting, it kind of alludes to that industrial history.

Art was all I knew to be honest.

Obviously my parents, pretty sure they’d want me to have excelled in, you know, medicine or become an accountant or something. But creativity is what I knew and that’s the language that I was… I think, was born with.