A wee visit to Rome.

I haven’t painted many Big Heids lately. I am currently working on a solo exhibition for later in the year so I am spending a lot of my time in the studio. My partner is in Rome just now so I was visiting her at the weekend and I thought i would do a wee blog on some of the stuff that I saw when I was over there.

My partner is Italian so I have visited a few Italian cities but this was my first time in Rome. When I visit a new city I am always looking for artists that I know and the first one I spotted was Voyder. It was really funny to then get a bit closer and see these keys sitting here with the big T logo, Tennent’s is quite a popular drink in Italy, usually people drink bottles of special T but it seems to have a different reputation over there. So aye off to a good start.

I am also really interesting in the different types of buffs and Rome was especially fruitful for these. Overall there seems to be an absence of any strict buff policy implemented by the city there, with lots of old pieces of graffiti still running and endless tags all over the city. this does however mean that a lot of the buffs you do see are DIY buffs which create really good textures and aesthetics.

As always I would recommend checking out Stephen Burke and Sean Clarke’s film ‘Buff’ which delves deep into the world of buff and the connections they have made to the contemporary art world. I now view buffs almost in the same way as graffiti and street art which is quite bizarre, but I do like the idea that it’s all about how we frame things in our minds. I feel that a buff is often thought to be removing something but if you switch the frame to think of it as an addition, a continuation of the visual conversation in the street, then you can start to see the value in them. Aesthetically they are just really class as well.

While I was in Rome I didn’t paint anything but I really enjoyed thinking about my work in the context of the international world of graffiti and street art. Glasgow is a small place so when you paint the streets here your work can stand out quite easily, especially when you are painting 10ft faces with swinging jaws. This can attract some negative attention and judgement from others, something I have to admit I have struggled with since starting to paint the streets. I think mainly because these characters are something I have always just done, I didn’t go out my way to make them accessible or public friendly. I created them because I love street art and graffiti and I love people that paint characters. My hero’s are people like Galo and The London Police. So I was buzzing to see some boozy characters tags they had done in Rome. This is the lineage I have always aspired to be part of.

These guys have been painting their characters for over 20 years now and they still give me the same buzz now as they did back then when I discovered them as a wide eyed 10 year old. So this makes me think about the lineage of people who paint characters. People that paint faces and heads. There is a whole host of them all over the world and it was really nice to feel connected to that and to then find more Roman character creators as the weekend went on.

And now this is why I fucking love this culture. I took this photo as we were walking to see some bigger murals that had been painted in the city, but I had to stop and get this flick because the Dodici character at the top is exactly what I’m into. What I love though is now that I am sitting at home I googled him and found his facebook and his art is amazing.

He paints characters which I love, but he also has a studio practice and is creating these canvasses with mini worlds in them which are really class.

HOWEVER! Even though this in itself is really amazing and such a buzz to discover artists this way. What excites me even more is that I found this picture on his facebook. This shows the wall from my photo when he first pasted up his character and it features something really excites me.

A while back I listened to the F24 podcast episode which featured Ivano Dumbo.

I really loved this podcast, especially the part where he talks about moving to a farm and living a completely different life for a while. Something about that really appealed to me. So from listening to this podcast I decided to buy his book. He seemed like a really interesting guy and I wanted to know more.

So this is basically what excites me. In the Dumbo book I discovered that he painted with someone who wrote Panda. I have never really taken letters seriously and have been called Panda since I was a wee guy so it was amazing to see someone using that as their name. So it’s just one of those geeky moments when ye get to discover that the thing thats underneath that rugged buff is actually someone you have saw in a book who has the same name as you. It’s such a small thing but it makes you feel connected to the world and the culture you love and I think that’s amazing.

So aye I’m glad that I decided to write this blog. It’s class discovering stuff like that. I think as well it inspires me to get out and paint the streets more. None of these people probably ever imagined that someone like me would discover their work and how much it means to me. It’s fleeting, but it’s also something that can resonate for years to come and there are ways for this stuff to travel and be discovered. So again, what a privilege it is to take part in a culture like this. I don’t think we realise how lucky we are.

So what mural was I going to see?

This Blu painting was created in 2014 and has faded quite a bit but it is still such an incredible thing to see in the flesh.

Blu has been one of my favourite artists for years. There is a lot of interesting stories surrounding his art, he buffed a lot of his own work to prevent people putting it into a museum, there is a really interesting video that GoodGuyBoris made about this which you should check out.

Finally I just wanted to shout out Tadh, who was the stand out character creator in Rome for me. I saw his heads everywhere and the style is exactly how I see my own work. Painted quickly with clean lines and just something funky about them.

Big ups to all the character creators around the world. I feel like this is something I want to continue to explore.

Why do we create them?

What do they mean?

Are they just something fun to do?

I think for the most part this is the answer. I have never thought that my characters have any meaning. I just do them because I saw other people do them and I liked it and created my own. Perhaps the lineage can be traced further back and we can find out what all these heads really mean.

Until then.

Enjoy yourself.

Thanks for reading.

Panda.

So what mural was I going to see?

OhPandah 2021 - A Wee Review.