She One

Last year I interviewed the artist She One. Here are the results. Note that I do not own the copyright to the images so if you are the copyright holder and wish for them to be removed then please let me know.

She One

London artist She One is pretty clear about his role in the art world. “I’m a Graffiti artist.” He states bluntly. This is not strictly true. To say She One is a Graffiti artist is like saying Jackson Pollock used to throw a bit of paint on the canvas. Both statements are partially accurate but give no genuine indication how great each of the respective artists work is.

She One’s huge paintings push the notion of what can be considered Graffiti to its limits. To the casual observer his pieces seem to have more in common with Abstract Expressionist painting than the kind of Graffiti we see thrown up by train lines or daubed as tags across the country.

I first came across the work of She One in the ground breaking 1998 street art compendium Scrawl, Dirty Graphics and Strange Characters. Of all the awe inspiring art in the book it was the work of She One that captured mine and many other’s imaginations. This was pretty out there stuff, even in a book featuring legendary New York Graffiti oddball and bona fide legend, Futura 2000. Somehow, She One managed to make some luminaries of the scene look decidedly pedestrian.

A key text in the history of graffiti was the 1984 book Subway Art by photographer Henry Chalfant. The book chronicled the early days of New York Graffiti, and along with classic Graff movies Wild Style and Style Wars countless kids were inspired  to pick up a spray can and take to their nearest drab city centre and put some colour into in the grey and decaying town centres of eighties Britain. She One was one of those kids.

“My work is deeply rooted in the New York Subway graffiti era circa 78' - 82, in particular
a group of artists called The Death Squad who were at the forefront of taking art from the
trains and translating it onto canvas.” He says. The Death Squad was a crew that cared more about pushing the envelope stylistically than ritualistically tagging every blank surface going. The Death Squad pioneered challenging and innovative new typography and lettering, developing a signature style that was more out there and complex than any of their predecessors in the New York and Global Graffiti scenes.

So deep rooted is this New York influence in She One’s work that you really have to train your eyes to make out the traditional Graffiti and typographical elements in the paintings. At first they seem like a series of minimal, violent streaks of spray paint on the canvas which form spidery abstract patterns. But look into the painting, and consider the title of the piece and the letterforms may suddenly become clear. Like a Graffiti magic eye picture.

Other than being inspired by the heritage and origins of the original Graffiti birth place, New York City, She One claims that “As for influence, there is nothing concrete; I just paint what I feel.”  It is in fact, the titles of the paintings which are of the most important creative decisions She One makes when beginning new work. “In the studio I work paintings up from drawing” He says, “I will essentially design a set of paintings before I start them, the feel, the direction of the paint and the titles. The titles are very important as they inform the content.”

Both She One’s studio and live work can seem slapdash and chaotic given the rapid speed at which he paints and the vast broad streaks of paint which criss-crossing the canvas, yet the brush and can strokes are carefully applied and meticulously orchestrated. They are an accumulation of over ten years of She One honing his unique style. “I definitely didn't just 'hit upon' my style of painting; it is purely the result of drawing typography and executing paintings with spray paint.” He tells me.

When painting live for a club night or event, She One paints straight onto whatever surface is in front of him with no planning. He feeds off the urgency and spontaneity that painting live in front of an audience demands. “It’s like doing a 20 minute guitar solo, where once you start you don’t know where it’s going to end. You have to go with it and commit to that moment.”

This takes me a little by surprise, that for an artist whose work is characteristically lean, he compares himself to such a bloated and self indulgent act as the extended guitar solo. But shake off the Spinal Tap associations and the comparison makes sense, it is improvisation and virtuosity which informs the work he creates. He is often totally surprised by the outcome of the live painting to the point of feeling overwhelmed when viewing the work after leaving the trance-like plain he inhabits when creating it.

Many of She One’s Scrawl peers were art school educated. Mr Jago trained as a graphic designer while others like Will Barras worked in illustration and Animation but She One has no formal training. “I have never been to art school, however as a teenager I was fortunate to discover spray paint as a medium.” He says. “Fortunate because spray paint and the application of graffiti had no legitimate artistic legacy and so I was free from any pre conceived critique of my approach to image making.” He adds.

It is this lack of legitimate artistic legacy that has led many in the street art and Graffiti community to be open about the prospect of commodifying their work. While many fine artists would rather starve than sell their work to clothing companies and toy manufacturers, Graff artists have never been so precious.

The artists of the Scrawl generation realised that through collaboration with commercial outlets more people would get to see their work and they would have a legitimate opportunity to make a decent living doing what they love. And the icing on the cake was that through choosing to work with companies and organisations which were sympathetic to their aesthetic they could maintain a great deal of creative autonomy.

This mix of commerce and creativity seems perfectly natural to She One. “All art is commerce or we wouldn’t have any galleries.” He Says, “Graffiti artists in particular have been good at commodifying their aesthetic into low priced collectibles. The art world has really caught up and contemporary gallery and museum shops are bulging with art licensed onto everyday objects.”

One of She One’s most enduring collaborations was his work for the Addict clothing brand which has seen his designs sported by thousands of people worldwide.  “Addict gave me the opportunity to create a fabric pattern, the S1 Camo, initially it was going to be for one jacket but it is still in production on clothing and products five years later.” He says.

There is no denying that seeing your work on people in the street must be a buzz to rival seeing one of your pieces on a wall or train. It’s something that is not lost on She One. He confesses, “Wherever I travel in the world I see people wearing it. It is a genuinely humbling feeling to have created something that has resonated with such a diverse audience.”

But does he feel that he has had to compromise his artistic vision in undertaking this type of collaboration? “I will explore any avenue of application of my works as long as I feel it is sympathetic to my overall body of work.” He says.

So, I ask, what do you have planned for your work in the near future? He answers as if this were the most unoriginal question in the world (which it indeed may be) and he clearly doesn’t feel the need to offer an elaborate answer, “Colour, slogans, coffee and cigarettes.”

The brevity of his answers seems largely due to being bored of being asked the same old questions (he confirms this to me in a later email). I can’t help think it is inevitable that numerous journalists would pursue the same lines of enquiry given he has maintained the same striking visual aesthetic for over a decade now.

He has never deviated dramatically from his style of painting, he has simply evolved his initial vision, stretching it across the canvas until it has no where left to go then stretching it some more until it spills over and takes on a new identity, becoming its own new piece. He has innovated in style, but not in form.

She One is like a scientist in his lab testing a formula. He works to balance all the elements within a painting; the colour, the dimensions, the textures. He repeats the things that worked previously and eliminates those that have failed with the hope of one day presenting a perfect distillation of his aesthetic. Whether he will ever achieve the perfect alchemy will remain to be seen, but for the rest of us, it will be fun watching him try.