Living up to its name, Siam Discovery The Exploratorium continues to bring art and creativity to the city with their latest event "Siam Discovery: Discovery Street Culture". As part of the event, a core member of UFO907, noted graffiti crew from New York, is having his first exhibition titled "Zero To Hero" in Thailand, after two main exhibitions in Japan. We talked to the elusive artist about his long journey as graffiti artist, experience of creating art on the street and his quirky signature alien. The exhibition, which features several sculptures and many paintings created in a studio in Bangkok, runs until Feb 20 on the ground floor of Siam Discovery.
You dropped out of an art school to pursue street art. How did that come about?
I had friends in the graffiti culture in the early 90s. I felt more at home within that culture than I did in the proper art world, where you have to beg and find a way into a gallery to have your work shown. In the graffiti world, it's a whole way of different expression. Your painting is out in the world, not hanging in a studio and you work in an unpredictable circumstances, which is a part of the beauty of painting graffiti. You never know what's going to happen or the situation that you would get yourself into. People may chase you away. Your surface may be bricks or covered in vine. It can even be a truck or the inside of a train. Or you have to paint on the outside of the train while running as it leaves the station. I was in my early 20s. It was appealing to me. I wanted to be a bad boy and have fun. Be out and about. I've been doing graffiti and writing the moniker UFO for more than 20 years. The UFO907 crew was already around before I joined and I carry the torch now.
Tell us more about the crews in New York.
They all have different styles and aesthetics. Some do traditional macho tough-guy illegible word thing with a lot of arrows [wildstyle letters]. 907 has always been on the left field in the graffiti world. We kinda always do something that is really weird. Painting in a weird style and stand out as individual. A lot of graffiti writers in the beginning shunned 907. They would say that it's not a real graffiti and call us art guys [laughs].
What's the relationship between graffiti and street art in your opinion?
Like I was saying before, graffiti involves unpredictability and risk because you don't ask for permission to do it. You can paint on a truck and the truck will go around the city, like a mobile gallery. It's art for the common people instead of art for the rich collectors. You usually paint at night under unforeseen circumstances while street art, over the years, has become a big movement worldwide. Street artists learn from graffiti writers. Artists take note of how graffiti writers become recognised simply because they put their work on the street and, with help of social media, they gain recognition quickly while artists send files to galleries asking to be in a show. I think that creates some spite from the graffiti world because street artists don't keep it real and ask for permission. Whether you go to a gallery or street route, they are different means to the same end.
Why UFO?
When I was in art school, one of the bands I was listening to was Unlimited Freak Out whose acronym is UFO. I like that. It says no boundary. I used to sign my graffiti with my real name and it wasn't a good idea so I wrote UFO instead. It later evolved into an icon rather than word. The look of my alien has also evolved over the years. I went on a painting trip in Chile along the ocean until it become octopus-like creature with eyes that you see today. They are like self-portraits of me. I always feel like an alien to the world.
You also create work in a studio now. What it has been like?
When I left the art school, the street became my studio and gallery but a lot of them was illegal work. Very tiring and exerting. Imagine hanging off a side of a building or carrying five buckets of paints. When you're older, it gets tiring so I decide to switch gears and take it back to the studio at this point. It has been an amazing experience to come full circles after developing and evolving my art style. I come from a fine art background. I went to the art school wanting to be a ceramic artist. I went to Europe around that time and saw fine art paintings and fell in love with abstract and expressionism. I've always been a fine art weirdo in the graffiti world.
You visited Thailand before. Tell us about the experience.
I was here in 2005 with my crew. We did a double-decker bike tour across Thailand from Bangkok to Surat Thani. We stopped to paint murals along the way. Abandoned and neglected places are free places of expression and I find a lot of that here. So my murals can be pieces of beauty in forgotten places. Bangkok is pretty polluted and I kinda think of murals as a service of putting colours onto dark and dirty areas.
Is it easier for you to paint on the street here compared to back home?
More or less. During that trip, we were eating at a restaurant and walked across the street to paint a wall and people started to gather and cheered us on.
Why 'Zero To Hero'?
With social media these days, you can get your art out to so many people across the world. It's a way to elevate yourself. I've been at it for 20 years and it has been a long, long road for me. Today people can go from zero to hero in a matter of three months. Artists can reach so many people when they put themselves out there in the world.
Any words for aspiring artists out there?
Don't give up, man. Seriously. I have my friend who dabbled with art and stopped. I just never stopped and stuck to my name and what I was doing.
