Process hit Tamworth for the first time last year .

He is back with the Battle lines crew this June to do his thing

Nue quick five 

Tell us a little about yourself and what got you started painting ?

I was always one of those kids that would draw, fascinated by cartoons and animated films, so I’ve always been an artist really. It was when I was about 15 I discovered hip hop music, skateboarding and graffiti culture. It just sort of clicked and I went from there. They were all places I could go to get away from my troubles, but painting was the biggest buzz. It was always magical, right from the beginning. And you could do it on your owns terms, so it gave you a way of forming your own identity. I loved the whole process of it, from sketching in your black book, to finding spots, painting them, getting in and out without being seen and even getting photos developed under false names (seems silly now, lol). You started to look at your environment differently, it all became a playground for you to use.

Best place you have painted ?

I lived in Scotland for a few years, this was around 2001. I was at college there, I had moved to study animation at college in Greenock, a small town just west of Glasgow on the River Clyde. I didn’t know anyone there, but after finding a couple of skaters in the area, a little community grew up around that and I started to show some of the guys how to make graffiti.
So we’d go looking for spots to paint, their was a couple of places that were just so amazing. Abandoned railway tracks that had these incredible stone tunnels and bridges, all overgrown but reminiscent of a scene from Tomb Raider or something. And huge, half demolished, industrial areas, which had been built into the side of these hills. Loads of walls, crumbling remains, half made of brick, half the stone wall of the hill side. It was a massive, multi level site and we knew the way in. You could paint there anytime and it was really only me and a couple of others that knew of it, we were pretty spoilt, it was a pretty special place. The views over the Clyde were amazing and if you’re a fan of urban decay, well, it had that in abundance.

Any big plans for this year ?

I’ve got a few things in the pipeline, I’ve spent a lot of the last couple of years developing more gallery based works, so I’m really itching to get back to doing some big walls, but pushing what I’m doing there to blend more with the direction the gallery based stuff has gone in. I’m in a period of trying to tie my creative output together a bit more. So the walls connect a bit more directly with the concepts and forms I’ve been producing in the sculptural stuff. I guess the big plan for me at the moment is consolidating my work to date, into a more cohesive form, so I can really nail down that visual language and style. From there, it’s all about proliferation of that. The biggest problem I face as an artist is over thinking. It’s a horrible beast, one that I’m not easily detachable from, it’s just the way my mind works. But I’m hoping I can hack all these processes to get to a point where the thinking is done, and it’s just the making that exists. I’m trying to transcend the things that limit me as an artist, so I can unleash the full creative torrent that lives in all of us. It’s difficult to do.

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Tell us your funniest moments when out painting ?

There have been a few, some I can’t mention, but most of them involve various combinations of illicit activity.
There have been near misses, epic chase scenes, and some weird moments, I don’t go looking for those things, but they do come with the territory.
There was this one time, me and a friend wanted to paint some hoardings that were right in the middle of the city centre. A real prime spot. We realised we could actually paint them without being seen, but you just couldn’t get to them, without going past a dozen or so cameras. Many of which were monitored, which was the main problem.
We spent a week planning and devised a route that would use all the blind spots to get us to the wall, without being seen by any of these cameras. I think we must have been playing Metal Gear Solid at the time, because it was ridiculous, we had to scale walls, go through gardens, crawl on our bellies under parked cars, all just to avoid being spotted. Anyway, we did it, got there, painted, got out.

Went back next morning, first thing, to get some shots, it had already been painted over! We were just so gutted, but it was a great paint memory, when we realised how ridiculous and futile the whole thing was, I still laugh about it.

Anyone who you would like to collaborate with?

I love to collaborate with other artists, I couldn’t be specific, as there are quite a few I’d like to work with. All of them?