What a wonderful week in Ireland, thanks to all the crew that made the week a slick production experience. A special thanks to Gabe, John, Kerri, Luke, Raphael, Madison and Soak7. There were more involved of course but as an old tipsy man my memory fails me. I haven’t experienced such a shared responsibility amongst a team for a long time, congratulations to all of you, you should be proud of what we all achieved.
I cut some new things specially for the festival that were a bit out of my usual schtick. Hope they worked for the local audience as they were cut for you.
The kneecap image was mediated thing i have ever painted, i’m a plastic Paddy (london irish) married to a Dubliner, taking a provocative image from a Northern Irish band to a southern Irish graffiti festival, i planned to just paint it around the place on unsanctioned walls and not ask permission. However with all the other factors that i’ve mentioned, i actually checked with all involved to see if i wasn’t stepping on too many toes. The band and the festival said yes and with the wife happy i was not being a bull in a china shop i was set.
I only explain this background to temper the uk interpretation of this image . I am not ignorant of an irish dialogue which may make this image problematic. But as a street artist its more of a tribute to Mr B’s flower thrower than anything else. It is after all me in a tracksuit pulling the same pose with a can of paint.
Faced with that, the location Waterford and the whole street art shtick. I thought of doing it my way with a localised message . It was first painted in much hit spot in Jenkins lane car park, keeping the look of a tagged wall to contextualise the tagging that is bound to appear after i have left. Thought i’d contribute to their wall than go over it with something more mural like .
I painted it a second time at the Waterford walls paint jam. I love a good knackered wall, something with a personality. There were a loads of great charcoal drawings and kids chalk drawings all over it and i thought i could add a couple of kids or something would of added to what was already there. The artist i ended up going over was a nice guy called Maurice Caplice who drew the seahorse, he explained a French girl had written the Free Palestine on the wall and the spot for DJ Próvai was found.
Rather than paint a mural in the town, Waterford walls were kind enough to find some smaller spots dotted around town. Its a big ask, a lot more talking to folk and finding walls that work with my style. But they pulled it out of the bag with 8 or 9 nice folk that allowed me to pop up some old fashioned street hits.
A big thanks to Hannah Judah and Street Art Atlas who captured my visit. Thanks to Hannah for my inclusion in her wonderful book signing ( check it out, available from all your usual suppliers ). Thanks you too all those who came and suffered my quite sweary artist presentation. Sorry! Had a great week, painted a fair bit, drank a little too much, i blame the Buzzballs!
The Kid above is actually called Luca and is an old friend of the family. He’s a bit sweary but the coincidence was appriciated by the nice guys in the record shop.
Made a few weird versions of the Dj Provi stencil on some old newspapers that are available online at Stella Dore if your interested.
