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Friends Laos mural travel

Namkhan Ecolodge, Laos

Totally slipped my mind i hadn’t posted something on my whistle stop trip to Laos in February this year. Myself and Ben Eine headed off to Luang Prabang the religious capital of Lao on the Mekong River. Part of an ongoing art project at Nam Khan Project. Artists are invited to stay a week and make works inspired by the NamKhan Ecolodge. It’s a green sanctuary along the Namkhan river located in Luang Prabang, Unesco World Heritage city.

Surrounded by the farm, jungle and riding stables. A big thank you to the kitchen staff who cooked a storm up for us. Although they did owe me as i brought a top of the range ice cream maker with me from London and those things are NOT small…lol

Had a cracking week, Camping by the NamKhan. Boat trips up the Mekong, note to self, don’t jump off a moving boat in a fast moving river! Life there is so relaxed, the guys at the Lodge made everything possible. Hard to look at this as work at all, well fed , well watered and in the jungle by a river.

Guest house kitchen

We even managed to paint some pieces in town, a big thank you to Jean Marc and Danni for giving us the walls! A great trip out with a 13 hour stop over in Bangkok , meeting up with friends and trips to the tattoo parlour, what could of possibly gone wrong…just leaving this there.

Instagram the shit out of it.
Categories
commission murals travel Uncategorized

Grove Village, Ras al Khaimah.

We’ve been talking about painting this new container park development for a while now, Sheik Abdulla and i. Working out what to paint, where the finished works would go, it’s a new thing for this mountainous corner of the UAE… new ground, corrugated surfaces and a different type of vibe. It’s the first part on a series of works for Grove village that will grow year on year…Watch this space…Grove Village

Categories
Rude Kids show travel Uncategorized

Mind in the gutter

So this is first solo show in Paris, it was in the mid 80’s i first saw stencil work on the streets, Nemo, Blek le rat and others. These heroes inspired me to take up the scalpel and paint on the street. Paris has always had a rich stencil history, from 1968 till today and it is a great honour to show in this city.

A bit about the show written by the gallery

“Mind in the Gutter” is the name Dotmasters gave this exhibition. It evokes for him dubious intentions, ambiguous actions, all these unsavory and yet jubilant things. Faithful to the vandal and provocative essence of urban art, this title captures the artists’ state of mind, who, jovial and lucid, enjoys taboos, contradictions, new gods and the absurdity of our contemporary lifestyles.

The exhibition offers several levels of reading: one can appreciate it as a pop, offbeat and impertinent visual experience or read in it an ironic critique of today’s society. Dotmasters develops the concept of “high-end waste” with brass sculptures of chanel paper bags. Through this realization, he takes note, reinforces and plays on the ambiguity between marketing and works of art, between single piece and disposable goods, between aesthetic value and commercial production.

Second theme dear to the artist, rebellious and cheeky cherubim populate the works of Dotmasters. Made from photographs of her nieces, nephews and friends, these stencils bring a mischievous and indocent hue to the exhibition. The turbulent and transgressive little angels who speak out or show their fingers to the spectator remind us of the joy that arises from disorder, the creativity generated by chaos and especially the importance of not being earnest.

Where there’s muck there’s brass, Painted cast brass sculpture

GCA Gallery PARIS – 2 place Farhat Hached – 75013 – Paris
du mardi au samedi de 11h30 à 18h30
Tél : +33 6 09 07 75 99

Open till the 16th of March

show catalogue here

Categories
Festival Fuiji Rock Festival Japan Mutoid waste department travel

Unfairground Fuji Rock 2018

When we found out there was no Glastonbury 2018 we decided to take the Unfairground on tour. Having presented some of the sideshows in the Palace of Wonder (the late night spot at Fuji Rock) in 2012, when Glastonbury last rested the land, It seemed only natural to take the whole motley crew off to Naeba for 2018’s 20th anniversary of Fuji rock !

 For our Japanese trip we recruited Unfairground favourites Ben Eine and Inkie on painting duties as well as Local legend Masagon and Myself. We packed Sam Haggerty’s sculptures into a shipping container or two and sent them off to Japan in May.


Pryratrix Circus Joined us to help entertain the crowds, with Born on road, Jagz Kooner and Jack from Children of acid providing the tunes for the weekend. In all a Uncrew of 50 headed off for the mountains of Naeba, taking a slice of site life to fields of Fuji rock.


Ben Eine mixes it up

Inkie’s kongee

Masagon went Dotty

And Dotty went freehand.
With the hottest weather on record, the Unfairground crew melted across the old Orange court. Thankfully The Typhoon that hit us Saturday night didn’t cause too much damage. We’d like to Thank Naeba and Yuzawa councils for inviting us, Smash go round for making it all happen and Bryan burton lewis for being so special. Thanks to all who came, threw some shapes and tagged us in those million photos that got taken! Thanks Guys it was real!



Categories
Japan Rude Kids show street travel Uncategorized

TOkYo

 

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Just back from Japan, i had a great time! First off a week in Tokyo with Gypsy eyes showing me around town, helping me find walls and the gallery Kawamatsu for a show on the 8th of October. I first visited Kawamatsu 4 years ago when i first had a show in Tokyo. The owner is a keen street art fan and had one of the only walls that you could paint legally in town. 4 years later i was exhibiting inside. Thanks to everyone who came, bought something and drank a little too much Asahi beer, it was a great night!
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photograph Yuki Loroi
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Finding walls to paint in Tokyo is tricky, Its a dense city with complicated wall ownership and a young appreciation of art on the street. However Gypsy eyes pulled it out of the bag with this stunning newly renovated cafe/bar soon to open called Kitsune (fox). A weird shape and full of windows with only the stencils i came with to work i think it worked. God knows it took us a couple of very long days to finish! Thanks to Taro who was an incredible help thorough out the week and to Murao who drove like a crazy man to get me around! Thanks all you made a fantastic visit!
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address of the cafe
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quick skateboard during the night.

Categories
Festival travel

Marrakech Biennale

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In Marrakech this week painting for the Biennale with MB6, amazing place, really another world. Its early days and i’ve just started painting, going to be a weird Dotmasters piece and i have had to find something non figurative to fit with the local culture. More info as it happens

Categories
protest travel Uncategorized

Calais Jungle report

With the media reporting that the conditions in the migrant and refugee camp in Calais , where about 4,000+ residents, including an increasing number of women and children, are living in conditions “far below any minimum standards for refugee camps” its hard to ignore calls that ask you to help. On friday night, I had just finished the ‘Biggest Toy in Toytown’ piece mentioned in the previous post when the phone rung. The Connor Brothers were calling to ask if i would help them build some shelters for some of the more vulnerable residents in the place they call the Jungle.jungle_tweak

It’s not often you get asked to directly to make a difference in stories you hear about in the papers, so i said yes. We set off to France on the tunnel the next monday started work, money from a Connor Brothers charity print release had been sent before we arrived and lauberge des migrants  had materials waiting for us. There are a core of volunteers that make sense of the sprawling squalor, it was hard to know who to help and where to start, but with help withing the camp (mostly David) we soon started making shelters for families.day1_campcpmboHere’s our first shelter and occupant family, Coptic Christians fleeing persecution in Eritrea, they asked me to put coptic crosses on the doors, proud of the faith that was in part responsible for their displacement. Luckily i had some old religious themed stencils Adam & God and angels from Sistine Madonna.FAM

Day two brought very different problems, after a days had work on our second set of shelters, we were just packing up and walking back from the Eritrean area when fighting broke out between the migrants and the CRS, a back and forth antagonism between the two drew tear gas from the police and stones from the migrants on the road below the motorway.
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Twice as we tried to get into the vans we were tear gassed, wether it was at those throwing rocks or us opening foreign registration plated vehicles, it is hard to tell. Getting a face of gas with your eyes burning and streaming doesn’t make you very charitable to their motives. However we got out in the end safe and sound and returned the next day to build more dwellings for the folk who are forced to live in these dire conditions.

We made a difference to a small path in the camp, it will take months to get the most vulnerable the women and children housed for the winter with more turning up each day it’s hard to see an end to it. We will be back, having learnt some lessons in dealing with the terrain, people and materials it would sad not to make the next trip even more effective.

Categories
group show travel

Pop Wall Dubai

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I’ve been busy in the studio the last couple of months preparing for a couple of shows that are coming up in March and April in Dubai & Los Angeles respectively.

Dubai’s first up, with a show at the Courtyard Gallery in collaboration with Graffik gallery from London. It promises to be a interesting show with stablemates from Graffik and artists from the local Courtyard gallery merging middle eastern and western ideas of pop art.

The show coincides with the Dubai Art Fair, so there will be a buzz around town. We will be live painting in and around the gallery for a week or so, so if you have a public wall in need of some trash drop me a line via the contact form on the site.

The Courtyard gallery
AL QUOZ 3, STREET 6A
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Opening Reception: Sunday 16 March, 6:00 – 9:00pm
Exhibition Dates: 16 March – 17 April 2014
Gallery timings: Sunday – Thursday 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

 

 

Categories
travel Uncategorized

San Francisco update

Well if you can remember San Francisco, you haven’t been there, or so the saying should go. Had an amazing week in San Fran, it’s a hell of a town, Thanks to John, Kristen, Julio, Ben & Carrie and Megan.
Can’t really say why i was there, thought i’d be doing some stuff on the streets, having some meetings about projects to come…. but ended up painting large walls with Eine. However i did make a load of work thanks to the generous studio of EineSigns. It was a crazy week  and there’s little to say in words but apparently pictures speak louder so…

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Thanks to megan at the Dog Patch Saloon who kept us watered, like good dogs, no one in San Francisco mixes a whiskey sour like you girl! You rock!

Categories
Festival Mallorca murals travel widewalls

Widewalls trailer

I had a great time at easter with Widewalls, unfortunately those tricky guys at Saft films managed to convince me to front the bloody thing. I’ve worked with Saft many times before and soon the camera kings Zoomintrude and Nano shakes and myself fell into our old Rinky Dink Productions habits. The Final 6 minutes 66 second version should be released some time over the coming weeks.