Street Art London

Tell us a little about your artistic background and how you got into street art?

I was always interested in art, but in the late 80’s was taken in by the graffiti subculture which worked well with the adolescent angst and the need to forge an identity at that time. This developed into mural work and then later onto art school where I was introduced to the broader history of painting. After a focus on oil painting and the tradition of figurative painting, I returned to the source – the spray can – which led to a more fluid and personal technique. Throughout this time I have alternated between painting in the street and in the studio.

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Malarky and Mr. Penfold

Tell us a little about your artistic background and how you go into street art?

I was always a doodler and then when i got into skateboarding when i was 13 or 14 I was subjected to a lot more art that related to me and this is when I started doing drawings for stickers and putting them about, gradually got into doing graffiti and for a while I was doing letter pieces but my letters normally always ended up turning into characters and then I started focusing on characters and just drawing stuff that made me smile. I never planned to be an artist, I didn’t even know you could survive working as an artist, i’m still not sure! I worked a few different design jobs and started meeting like minded people that were already working as successful artists, loved the studio culture and just chilling with friends and drawing so I just started doing that. As far as street art goes, I like to paint outside, I can’t really explain it, I like to add some colour to the streets and reclaim a bit of bland street surface, if you what I mean.

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You might have seen his stickers all around East London.  New York based street artist Dickchicken talks to Street Art London…

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Creator of a tiny community of cement sculptures hidden and isolated around the city, Isaac Cordal invites us to reflect on the sad state of the world through his art. It holds a mirror up to society by recreating scenes of our everyday modern life reminding us of the numb passage of time, the overwhelming influence of consumerism and elimination of nature. Keep your eyes open!

Busy with his first solo book and ongoing projects, Isaac has taken a bit of time to answer some of our questions. Read on as he explains why he uses cement and on such a small scale, discusses the importance of placement of his sculptures and tells us a story about one of his installations created in a puddle in Dalston. All photos are Isaac Cordal’s unless otherwise indicated.

You come from a traditional fine art university background. Why and when did you decide to take your art into the streets?

The street is the perfect scenery for my sculptures. I could not imagine having to make big holes, carry water to fill pools; the city comes with all of this by default and it´s still free. Sometimes it’s difficult to find suitable sites and other days the city seems to be calling me.

My primary idea was to make models with rapid cement and manipulate tiny portions of urban areas but it dried too quickly. After a while I started to make silicone molds to multiply the sculptures. My first pieces in the streets were in 2006.

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RUN’s love of travel has driven him to create work everywhere from his native Italy to China to London where he lives now. His latest piece, large as always, is inspired by carnival season and can be seen at The Foundry. Hands and interlocking faces have long been a RUN signature in London.

Past his days of leaving his mark on trains and lorries, RUN talks to us about why he likes to paint legal walls these days, tells us where the name RUN comes from and gives us his thoughts on the attitude toward the graffiti scene in London.  (Except where otherwise indicated, all photos are from RUN).

What’s the story behind the name RUN?

RUN ‘s tag has been inspired by a Cypress Hill song, from the name of the dog of an Italian Mutoides friend (GRUNE), from the sound of these three letters with no meaning added.  When you are young and you choose a tag, it doesn’t usually have the deepest meaning ever.  It is like if you get a tattoo when you are 16 or 18 then ten year later it is just a mark on you, but it stays on your skin forever.

When and where did you create your first street art? What was it?

I used to graff when I was very little on trains, lorries , walls. Then I started to create paintings out of Hip Hop, using matt emulsion, water-based colour, rolls and brushes. My first big wall was in 2003 while squatting in a building in Italy. The meaning of that painting was: “We are here now and we haven’t got fear of nobody!”

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