Feature: Exhibition - The Graffiti Artist Mr P - Until November 28 at Pure Evil Gallery
Published: 18 November 2010
by DAN CARRIER
IT is like an extreme sport, says Mr P: a form of art that puts Jackson Pollock’s action-pictures to shame. The artist is renowned in Kentish Town for once scaling shops and bridges to leave his distinctive art on rooftops: but he has now graduated from solely producing street art – although he still does commissions – and is now in galleries.
Mr P – whose real identity he still wishes to keep secret – has a new exhibition starting this week at Hoxton’s Pure Evil gallery.
This move from night-time – and illegal – work and into a gallery marks how the art world has woken up to street art in recent years.
Mr P was at Acland Burghley School in the late 1990s and he praised the teachers there for inspiring a generation of new artists. He and his friends became known as the ATG crew – and from 2001 became renowned among other street artists for their colourful, lively and daring works across London.
Mr P recalls that one of his teachers, Mr Foster, saw that he and his friends were interested in graffiti. So he found them a cache of old spray paint in the basement of the school, gave them a wall and set up art classes on Tuesdays to practise and hone their techniques.
“It became a legal graffiti park,” says Mr P. “People began coming from around the world to use it – and for me and my friends it was amazing to see really talented and well known artists using our school for this. We got to speak to established artists and learnt from them.”
He soon graduated to night-time rooftop sessions, and says it was like an extreme sport.
“I did it between the ages of 17 and 21,” he says. “Around that age people were searching for something to do, something with a sense of adventure and belonging. I found it very fulfilling. It defined what I was about, and helped give me a sense of freedom. I got hooked on it.”
He now enjoys working in less dangerous surroundings of studios. “Being in a gallery is of course very different from climbing above the streets of London, shinning up drainpipes and learning which roof tiles you could safely walk across,” he says.
“The graffiti world is very secretive. You do not want people to know you are involved in it – so it is a bit weird to have people come up to you and speak to you in a gallery about your work.”
But despite his burgeoning commercial success – the ATG crew, made up of Mr P and his friends from the early days at Acland Burghley now exhibit around the world, and have branched out to making music, DJ-ing, and holding events – he is still proud of how his works have become a defining image of the area.
“I see people taking photographs of my work in Kentish Town and that is very rewarding,” he says.
“Kentish Town is a very creative place – it is full of people working in music, artists, writers, and for my art to be associated with it is great.”
l Mr P’s show runs until November 28 at Pure Evil Gallery, 108 Leonard Street, Shoreditch, EC2, 020 7729 2866, www.pureevilclothing.com