Can you remind us who you are and your artistic practice?
My street name is Stew. My artistic practice is multifaceted; I’m best known for my bird stencils, but I consider myself an “Infograffeur”—a fusion of digital art and graffiti.
What is your background, how did you start creating?
I think I’ve always been drawn to creating art, but the first time I saw graffiti was in “Noway,” a skate magazine from the ’90s, and then there were the railroad tracks at Saint Lazare, LUS, P3K, 73 AUDIO, the tags in the cars of the commuter trains, and then the advent of the internet, my first computer in 2001, my enrollment at the artists’ residence in 2002, my first stencil in 2006, the “blue heron” in 2014, and then my studio in the Village in Ivry-sur-Seine five years ago now.
In your daily work as an artist, what inspires you?
Travel and people inspire me a lot, but at the moment it's rather difficult. In general it's a lot of nature and Japanese prints, heroic fantasy novels, music... but it's the street that inspires me to paint, the public space is a playground that is familiar to me and that calls me, a beautiful metal door, there is nothing better!
What is the trigger for the creation of a work?
There is no real trigger, I always want to paint, unfortunately we don't always do what we want in life!
Can you explain to us the way in which you build a work? What are the different stages of creation?
In general I document myself, I scribble on a sheet of paper, then I go digital, I draw with illustrator, I test the colors, I print the size that suits my illustration and I cut it to make a stencil. From then on I try to be as spontaneous as possible in my choice of colors and location of the work.