When you’re out on the street, or painting at a Graffiti Jam or a festival, it must be difficult to remain anonymous. Everyone has a camera on them these days. Do you find it tough? To keep the face? Yeah, for these jams you just know the setup, so it is a case of keeping the head down, not making eye contact and hoping. There was one last year, where a guy had a video camera and was circling all the way around me and coming closer. I asked him to only take pictures from behind me but he kept going so in the end I had to stop painting and tell him to fuck off! But yeah it’s a problem as I don’t like painting with a mask or respirator. It might seem a bit pedantic to try to maintain anonymity but it’s important. Not necessarily for what I’ve done already but for what I could do in the future! Have you had any arrests or any run-ins with the police?
No arrests but a few incidents all right. I think the most hassle I got was probably when I was doing a legal piece called “Labelz” for a mental health charity. The police wouldn’t believe it was legitimate and kept hassling me. I mean it was madness, I had a ladder and a cherrypicker and it was being done in broad daylight. What the hell were they thinking I was at!? And how about reactions from the public? If you’re doing something illegal the last thing you want to be doing is standing there talking to someone. Last Tuesday night when I was doing the “PoliThicks” piece I had all the stencils laid out and was about to stick them up when this drunk guy come along and started going “Maaan this is amazing! You cut all this and you’re going to spray it? Total respect!” I had to tell him to keep going and get rid of him! And of course there was that woman who butted in when I was doing the Gil Scott Heron piece.