Mila Doré: You first started making hand drawn posters of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Which one was your favourite and why?

Eelus: It was all about Master Splinter for me. He was like a rodent Mr Miyagi. There’s just something cool about a rat with ninja skills. I used to have pet rats too, they’re intelligent critters!

MD: Where else do you find the inspiration? (comics, films, real life…)

E: I’m big into horror and sci-fi, that’s always been my main inspiration. Most images for me are usually have one foot grounded in one of those areas. At the minute I’m reading a lot about natural geometry, Phi, the Golden Section and the basic invisible ordering of the universe. I’m becoming fascinated with the fact that even though the world to us seems chaotic and unstable, there’s a strict design and formula holding everything together. A secret language that governs everything we see or do. The same shapes and numeric equations are used from things as tiny as a virus cell all the way up to the shape and construction of an entire galaxy. For example, the orbit of Venus around the Earth creates an almost perfect pentagram every 8 years, mind blowing!

MD: Why did you choose stencils and not oil painting or ceramics?

E: I basically became interested in the same way I’m sure many others did, Banksy. I moved to London knowing nothing of stencils and street art and had my eyes opened in a big way. After being just a fan and observer of the scene for a while I decided I’d like to create my own work purely for my own satisfaction and curiosity. I used my background in design and illustration and just started making stencils of characters from my sketchbooks and from photos of friends and from magazines. I just seemed to get it, it felt right to me, something in my head clicked from the very first stencil I did. I really enjoy the process, the stages you have to deal with to produce the final piece. You need to be good at every stage to make a great stencil. You can’t be an amazing illustrator or painter but be shit with a scalpel, it just won’t work. It’s such a basic medium too, I guess I enjoy the challenge or getting what’s in my head out onto a wall or canvas using a limited colour palette and basic materials. Plus I’m very impatient and struggle with concentration problems at times. Something like oils is such a long messy process, I love the immediacy and simplicity of spraying a stencil.

MD: What do you find exciting about being on the streets?
E: I’m excited about people’s reactions to my work. I’m putting it out there to be judged, loved, hated, criticized, buffed. If you pick the right spot your piece could be seen, thought about and even discussed by hundreds of people in 1 day. That’s what excites me.

MD: How does it differ when you show your work in a gallery?

E: When you place a piece outside, you’re not trying to make money or please a gallery owner or potential buyer. I mean I know you’re not doing that when you paint a canvas too, you should always paint for you and you alone but if you’re painting a wall, you have another special level of freedom. I used to find showing pieces in a gallery really intense. I would get really excited if people liked the work or bought the work, and I’d become really down and withdrawn if bad things were said or if nothing sold. I’m learning to get better with all that now and starting to really enjoy creating art for myself and purely for the sole reason of creating.

MD: Who are your references in street art?

E: As I mentioned it was Banksy that first introduced me to street art and him and Eine that gave me my first break allowing me to sell my work through Pictures On Walls. My main ‘street art’ favourites are people like Herakut, C215, Titifreak, Blu, Word To Mother, Lister, David Choe, Mr Jago, Mike Giant, Skinner. I tend to be more influenced by people outside street art though, everyone from Aubrey Beardsley and Henry Fuseli to James Jean, Mike Mignola, Tom Gauld, Ashley Wood, Stanley Kubrik, Arthur C. Clarke, and last but not least H.P Lovecraft.

MD: Which is the best graffiti you’ve ever seen?

E: this:

MD: What do you think street art contributes to people in big cities?

E: I think it gives people an everyday opportunity to see art and engage their brains on something they probably wouldn’t have done otherwise. A lot of people never bother going to galleries or museums because they can be put off by the atmosphere or because they have a preconceived idea about what to expect, but with street art, it becomes part of your everyday world whether you like it or not. You could pass a piece on the street on the way to work and that piece could stop you in your tracks, make you take out 1 minute of your busy day to stop and think about it and it could stick in your head for the rest of the day, week, month. It could create discussion between colleagues and friends, make you share ideas and thoughts and just generally get people talking and discussing art where they wouldn’t have otherwise. I got an email once from a woman who had spotted one of my angels that I painted in Dublin. She was walking past there with her son and she said she got the feeling it was there watching over her and her family, giving her hope for the future. I thought that was amazing, it makes it all worthwhile.

MD: Compared to other cities in the world, what do you think about London’s street art scene?

E: I think there’s a lot of great stuff going on but I also think there’s a lot of shit being put out there. I haven’t done anything outside for a while now mainly because I feel like the streets are awash with bad stencils. It’s true that everyone has to start somewhere, you can’t be expected to knock out great pieces from day one, I know I certainly didn’t, but I also didn’t go spraying weak work all over the shop. I won’t put anything outside now unless the location has been carefully considered, planned and thought out and the piece is good enough to be put out there, to make a positive difference to that space and environment.

MD: If you could paint any wall in London which one would it be and what would you paint there?

E: I guess it wouldn’t all be about the biggest most high profile wall. Like I said it would have to be a wall that would interact successfully with the piece, become a collaboration between myself and the street. Sometimes the best wall spaces are the ones hidden away that only a small handful of people will ever see.

MD: What’s the best one you’ve already painted?

E: I think the 2 most successful pieces for me have to be the Main large wall I painted at the Cans Festival in London last year and the Lost Angel in Dublin. They came out exactly as I wanted them, I had a great time painting them, met some great people on both occasions during the process and I’ve had a really positive response from the people who saw them.

MD: What’s the thinking behind Cargo’s wall?

E: I have to say there’s no real concept behind the piece other than the woman is supposed to represent a kind of witch, living out in the forest. I just wanted to make the most of the opportunity and paint something that was just for the sake of painting. It was interesting for me to work on such a landscape format, most of my stuff seems to be portrait for some reason. It was also nice to relax and have fun with it knowing there were no print or canvas sales coming off the back of it.

MD: Could you tell us your favourite place in London to get inspired?
E: London has inspiration everywhere. I live on the South East coast now and make the trip to London around once a week to catch up with stuff. On that day I have an almost inspiration overload. I do a tour of the galleries and see what other people are doing, I walk the streets and take photos, I nip into books shops on the way and stock up on magazines then I spend time with friends in the pub in the evening. Every part of that day in London for me is inspirational.

MD: Tell us two or three places to go in London if we want to see good street art.

E: I used to have a studio in Hackney Wick, that places is constantly dripping with fresh paint. Other than that you’d probably wanna do a tour of the east end. Hit Shoreditch, Old Street, Hackney Rd areas, it’s always been the street art heart of London.

MD: Are you pessimistic or optimistic?

E: Depends what day you catch me on. Some days I can be the Lord of Doom and Gloom but then on others nothing can go wrong. I’m making more of a conscious effort recently to stay positive and optimistic at all times. At the end of the day I’m my own boss, I do what I love doing every single day of my life, I have an amazing supportive family and great friends, a roof over my head, I don’t really have anything to be pessimistic or negative about. The current financial situation in this country is the only worrying thing, a lot of people are obviously feeling the pinch.

MD: Which is your biggest fear? And your most unachievable dream?

E: My biggest fear is losing my creativity and having to go back to working for someone else. That depresses the hell out of me. My most unachievable dream is to become bitten by a radioactive animal or insect which results in me having bizarre super powers, massive responsibilities and crazy enemies. To direct sci-fi films would also be amazing but I have a suspicion that may never happen.

MD: If you could go back in time, would you do anything differently?

E: I would use a darker grey on the background for the Cargo wall Apart from that, absolutely nothing. You have to go where the journey takes you, roll with the punches and learn as much as you can from everything you do and everyone you meet.

MD: If you had to choose: Demon or angel?
E: Demon. Nietzsche said that In Heaven, all the interesting people are missing’.I couldn’t agree more.

MD: If you were god and suddenly woke up after a long sleep and saw the current chaos, what would be the first thing you’d do?

E: I’m not sure if I believe in ‘God’ but maybe there is some kind of grand Creator, It’s a nice theory. It seems to me that if something has created us, it’s almost like they’ve bought a Kitten, they’ve let the kitten loose in the house then completely forgotten about it. So when he/she comes back and finds the house has been trashed, he can hardly be surprised. In all honesty if I was said Creator, I’d get my majestic caddie to hand me my Godlike putter and I’d tap us into the nearest black hole (obviously in 1 shot) and start again. I guess me trying to be optimistic isn’t going too well just yet.

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For more information on Eelus go to:

http://eelus.com/ or his One Big Freak Show blog

Thanks to Unusualimage for use of his flickr images.

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Wet Paint: Do you remember the first mural/wall you painted? What was it and what prompted you to paint it?

The Krah: Graffiti is like an imprinted instinct, with roots in our tribal ancestors’ territorial marking and freedom of speech. Everyone sees Greece as a paradise holiday destination, with beautiful beaches, nice food and hot weather. As a child brought up in one of the most over crowded built up Mediterranean cities, with high unemployment, corruption, police brutality, knowing that you will be trapped in a 12 month army duty after school, it felt like there was no future.

I started doing tags in the streets of Athens as a kid, pure vandalism – it was so much fun. Then I felt the need to use spray paint and to get more creative so I did my first paintings of characters back in 1997 on one of the walls at my school. But that just wasn’t enough I soon got addicted and started painting the streets in central Athens, met other graff writers and then fell in love with painting subway trains. As I got older my passion to create opened lots of doors, I got to travel, meet people and through experimenting with different ways of making art I developed the style I have now.

WP: Graffiti or ‘tagging’ has recently been becoming more prevalent in your home city of Athens. Has this been a long time coming or a gradual build up of tagging? Why is it “all over the city” (or is that media misrepresenting it?)

TK: In Greece like in most Mediterranean countries because of the hot weather, people tend to spend most of their time out doors, in parks or meandering around in the city. Graffiti is not only a way of marking your journeys but it’s a way of changing your surroundings. The graffiti boom didn’t happen in the 80s like in the States or Western Europe, it started later on in the early 90s. Before that you would see lots of political and football slogans but because of our passionate and fiery nature it just got out of control, the youth took over the streets. Now days Greece exports the Sabotage spray paint, feta and olives.

WP: What would you say separates Greek street art from the scene in the UK? How are both scenes different?

TK: I find that we are more influenced by the European and Brazilian scene where as the English have been more influenced by the American style. Seeing the Athenian street-art you see strong references to Greek mythology and a lot of references to the Sea for example mermaids and anchors. You can’t avoid seeing political meanings in the street paintings visualising the current government corruption and the effect it has in the modern Greek society.

Sharp Graphic elements inspired by graphic design, seem to concur the new generation of graffiti in Athens. An interesting element is the new style of roller tagging that has been influenced by the notorious Brazilian pixacao taggers. I showed my Brazilian mate Milo Tchas some photos of them and asked him to compare them. He told me that the Greek style of roller tagging was different because the letters in the Brazilian pixacao are separate to each other and tall but the Greek ones are stack together look more like graphic logos and some have 3d shadows like traditional graffiti.

Check out some Greek graffiti/street art here:

WP: Who are your current favourite artists and why?

TK: Since I stated doing graffiti I always loved the work of Stelios Faitakis other ways known as Bizar. One of the first Greek graffiti artists and one of the most known. His style is influenced by the Orthodox church wall paintings that has a strong visual presence  In the Greek society mixed with themes based on ancient Greek mythology and elements of the far eastern culture, illustrating the struggle of the working class and the fight for freedom against the system depicting scenes of revolutions between angels and riot police.

WP: What role do you think digital photography and the internet have played in the street art boom (if any)?

TK: I remember before the internet and cheap fights we made and watched graffiti videos and graff magazines as it was the only way to find out more of what was going on in the graffiti sub-culture and find inspiration. Now days its easier to travel and you can check on the internet and see the new styles world wide, web-sites like graffiti.org, woostercollective.com and ekosystem.org have been as important to the evolution of graffiti as has the book spray-can art by Martha Cooper.

WP: There is something about Akira in your art, is that a fair comment? Has Japanese anime influenced your art?

TK: Akira is definitely one of the best animated films of all time. In 2002 my mate Eon from my crew (http://www.101crew.co.uk/) gave me a ticket for Tokyo. So, I went with him for a week of non stop graffiti and getting smashed. It was just life changing. They use cartoon mascots instead of logos and the streets of the centre all look like a futuristic Piccadilly circus full of neon signs and digital video adverts on screens, their rich alphabet adds to the visual stimulation… Japanese people of all ages read Manga comics on the tube on their way to work.

I love the Asian Temple roof tops that curl, and the way the Buddhist religion reflects on the population and you can see it in their mannerisms. Everything is different from the food to the smells, I could go on forever. It was a very inspiring trip and has effected they way I think and draw.

WP: You work on a lot of media, which is your favourite to work in and why?

TK: There is nothing like painting in the streets…. Finding spots that fit with the surroundings, so the art-work becomes one with the city. The idea that it belongs to everyone and it won’t last for ever, it is alive and it will deteriorate with the wall or might change by other people scribbling over it or cleaning it off.

WP: Have you ever been in trouble with the law?

TK: Lots of times….

WP: Who or what do you find influencing the work you create?

TK: Hypnotic rivers of sound, the vibrations of bass, spectrums of light, feelings, tastes and aromas of every day experiences.

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The Krah is currently working on a deck series for a British Skateboard Company and has three shows running at the moment in Birmingham, London and Brighton.

He will be appearing in some group shows in Athens, Berlin and New York.

Keep an eye on his travels and his trade-mark pieces appearing all over the world here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/the-krah/

You can also buy some The Krah limited edition prints from here:

http://thekrah.yokaboo.com/