A closer look at Speedy Graphito's creative process

Can you tell us a little about yourself and your artistic practice?

My name is Speedy Graphito and I'm a polymorphic visual artist.

What is your background and how did you get into design ?

I've been creating since childhood. At the age of 9, I started taking drawing lessons, and at 14 I started painting theater sets. After a classical art education - at the Maximilien Vox School of Applied Art and the Estienne School of Art in Paris - I began street painting under the name Speedy Graphito in 1983. My street work took up the canvases I painted at home in the form of small graphic stencils. Today, I divide my time between the studio, where I produce works for museum and gallery exhibitions, and frescoes for urban interventions and festivals.

In your day-to-day work as an artist, what inspires you?

The world I live in. I paint under the influence of life, my desires, my intuitions, all the things that shape us and create the individuals we are.

What triggers the creation of a work of art? 

Inspiration: my works are not the fruit of reflection, but rather of intuition. The subjects impose themselves on me as if predestined. I see my work as a response, a projection of my vision of the world around me. 

Can you explain how you go about creating your work? What are the different stages of creation?

I have several creative processes. Most of the time, my driving force is the desire to experience a new material, new tools, a new way of painting. In the studio, this can mean smearing the support to break the phenomenon of the blank page. It can also be starting from a dark background and sculpting it with touches of paint like bursts of light, to make the motif emerge, cutting out images on the computer and assembling them to create compositions, using earth, wood scraps, cut-out metal... to make sculptures. Even a piece of wood and a sandbank are enough for me to express myself. I generally use what I have on hand, and the variation in materials is always very inspiring. Novelty calls for creation.

For frescoes, it's often my studio work that's the pretext, the desire to try out a new technique on very large formats. Using stencils is also a way of rediscovering my first pictorial experiences on walls.

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