Due to interference and a campaign of  intimidation, (related in my previous post) it has not seen the light of day.

I have also encountered other adverse reactions that I have not recorded here.

My intentions were not to make a pot of cash, (though a humble living would have been nice for myself and the other artists).

Instead my dreams were of an aesthetic aspiration, giving exposure to ignored, untrained visionaries and first generation London graffiti pioneers from the roots of our rich urban culture; exploring typography, symbolism, social commentary and archetypes, free from the restrictions of graffiti but freed by it’s energy to explore new dimensions.

I have made a reluctant decision to cancel forthcoming events.

I apologise to those who were to be involved in this project, including artists who have been preparing work and individuals and agencies I had engaged to help. I find it hard to believe that we have faced this level of opposition to something so authentic, and of such interest but this has unfortunately been the case.

……………….

“For better it is to do mighty things, to dream of glorious triumph, even though checked by defeats, than to take part with those poor souls who neither do much, nor suffer much because they live in the grey twilight that knows neither victory or defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt- January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945

It is with this wisdom in mind and in a spirit of peace that I relate this news.

Elate/ Jon

………………………………………………..

I haven’t posted on my blog for a few months, here’s why.

I have been subject to a campaign of intimidation and aggression after announcing plans to open a gallery at Brick Lane and painting legal graffiti on prized spots. Now I realise I have unwittingly been put in an unthinkable situation.

I would be happy to engage in healthy competition of innovation, skills, banter and wit, but whoever is opposed to my plans chose the way of the bully. Now the situation has got so bad that I am going public with the information.

Let’s start at the beginning…..I painted anti-war slogans and punk logos since ‘82, then in the New York style from ‘84.

Being from a working class background I left school aged 16 in ‘86. I didn’t have the privilege of an art education so worked as a messenger boy in the City of London just as the Underground railway was overrun with graffiti for the first time.

My passion for graffiti got me fired from my round in early ‘87 and I continued writing on trains through London’s graffiti heyday until 1989 when I stopped illegal work and taught myself to paint classically in oil, continuing to paint graffiti legally.

When Banksy and others recently enabled vandalism to be accepted as an art form, and visionary painting by untrained outsiders was finally acknowledged, I thought my time for recognition was here. My calculation didn’t take into account the carefully controlled hierarchy that exists in the London scene.

I had no intent to subvert anyone’s status and only wished to embrace diversity in all its forms and participate in the community. So after being completely ignored by the major players in the ‘Street Art’ establishment I decided to go it alone in 2009 and curate my own space in a Georgian warehouse at the top of Brick Lane, the hub of the art community, specialising in work by oldskool graffiti writers and intuitive visionaries.

I told many in the neighbourhood about my plans. This news was met with a sign posted on my wall at the beginning of August 09 “Art Gallery Not Needed- London…Breathe/Stretch/Relax/Perforate” and signed ‘Sinom de Plume’

Sinom de Plume is a corruption of the French ‘Nom de Plume’ meaning Pen Name or literary double, a fake name adopted by an author.

“Breathe/Stretch/Relax/Perforate” is a corruption of the Yoga instruction ‘Breathe/Stretch/Relax/Rejuvenate’. In that simple substitution of one word for another the author turns an instruction in transcendence, humanity and hope into a tool of censorship, oppression and threat.

I was shocked that anyone could feel such a way against me for doing something so creative and positive but was even more determined to continue with my plans.

By late September 2009 I began to paint with the infamous and upcoming MuTate Britain Collective who embraced my art and long history in the scene , welcomed me with open arms, gave me enormous walls to paint and hung my work in some of the best spots in their ‘One Foot in the Grove’ show under the Westway in Ladbroke Grove. I was asked to invite some oldskool legends from London’s ‘Golden Age’ to come and paint their perimeter wall, which was delivered in fine style.

It’s all detailed on the previous posts on my blog. I felt delighted to be recognised at last. As the MuTate Britain extravaganza was going on in Portobello Road, West London, building work was being done on our proposed gallery in Shoreditch, indicating to people, I presume, that we had ignored the warning notice.

The work was finished in late 2009 and myself and my girlfriend went for a well deserved holiday over Christmas. As soon as we got back in late December, refreshed, invigorated and excited about the year ahead, the real intimidation started.

I began to notice an old car decked out in tinsel and driven by a very large man hanging around our building.

One quiet evening, the 2^nd January 2010, I was putting out the rubbish in the bin on the street corner; his car, which had been waiting in a side road, performed a reverse handbrake turn at high speed and then drove straight at me down the dark and empty street at full speed with hazard lights flashing. He screeched to a halt inches from my feet,  I thought I was going to get run over and managed to stumble out of his path to my gates and get in, terrified and shaking as he sat parked outside the gates.

At this point I knew something was seriously wrong.

I needed a drink and had nothing in the building so after 20 minutes left cautiously for the nearest pub after checking out of the window that he had gone. As I was drinking my pint and to my horror, the driver of the car walked up to the window, stared at me then turned on and disappeared into the night. I got home and called the police who said it was a rare and exceptional incident and gave me a crime number.

Two mornings later I awoke and looked out of the window, the barbed wire preventing access to our building had been pulled aside and the grey slate tiles leading to our windows were broken as if they had been walked across, even the roofing felt was ripped. The damage was verified as new by the caretaker so I called the police who attended and registered it as an attempted burglary.

Three weeks after it had been repaired, the barbed wire was ripped aside yet again, with fresh marks on the tiles.

On Sunday 7th March 2010 I found that my computer had been hacked. I consulted my IT guy who told me that it was an attack by professional hackers. They had installed a ‘Trojan’ and ‘key loggers’ (devices which record every stroke of the keypad) set up multiple user accounts with full privileges including ‘impersonate user privilege’ ‘’modify firmware privilege’ among countless other stuff including a ‘tunnelling proxy’ and encrypted zones, things I knew nothing about and had hardly even heard of.

They have ignored multiple opportunities to steal money from paypal accounts, preferring to access my emails.

This was repeatedly listed in my  PC’s ‘Events Log’ as Outlook Events-

‘”C:Users\Me\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst The store was last opened on a different machine”

…but I have only ever accessed my mail from my own PC; I am convinced this carefully targeted hacking is linked to the previous incidents. Any hacker who installs key loggers then ignores constant access to cash would probably be after something else,as is indicated in my events log.

They have also had access to…

• My writing and rants, directed at an art scene which ignore myself and countless talented others while celebrating ‘instant artists’ and hype.
• My personal emails to my girlfriend full of pet names, secrets of our personal life and ‘coochie coo’ sweetness.
• My gallery plans, manifesto, logos, and communications with artists I was planning to show when we opened; and confidential website information.
• Personal private photos of my family
• Shots from my girlfriend’s modelling portfolio.
• Intimate photos of myself and my girlfriend.
• My broad collection of ‘adult movies’ of multiple genres; classic hardcore, roleplay, lesbian, ‘Barely Legal’ and JAV (Japanese Adult Video) always verifiably legal and taken from carefully moderated sites.
• My archive of graffiti and art photos and scans of my sketches of future works.
• Intimate details of my illnesses, medications and medical conditions.
• Details of my history of substance misuse, now seven years clean.
• Highly personal emails to family members in times of illness, joy, distress and even argument.
• The vast variety of websites I read when trying to understand political and religious points of view from all ends of the spectrum when researching topics current in the media.
• My unpublished writing analysing the meanings behind mine and others’ work, written in the context of the history of art and civilisation.

After discovering and eventually putting a stop to the attack by shutting off my system I left the building next morning and was followed yet again, this time onto a train.

I cannot see what I could possibly have done to warrant this attention and threat; I am a good, kind and honest man who has done no-one any wrong, have tirelessly helped others throughout my life and have countless people who will happily vouch for my character and personality.

All I have done is paint legal walls with the owners’ permission according to the rules of graffiti, make a few impassioned comments about art on the web, and try to open a gallery in East London that gives a platform for highly talented and innovative  artists excluded by the establishment.

I ask nothing except to be allowed to live my life in peace. I am reconsidering my plans to open the gallery in the face of these experiences. It seems I have ‘ruffled feathers’ for whatever reason.

I send out this statement to raise awareness so that people know what is going on. I re-entered the scene full of optimism ideas, and happiness which I have shared with all who let me participate. I thought things would be very different to this.

Thanks to all who enjoy my art, have shared good times and given me support and encouragement. I hope my next communication will be on a happier note.

Elate / Jon

18^th March 2010

Additional note: Comments accusing me of being Schizophrenic and imagining the whole thing have already appeared on a well known graffiti site, in an obvious attempt to discredit me.

Now he’s back 20 years later, along with oldskool steel writers Fuel, Skore, Mear, Crok, Don myself and a few of London’s more new skool to take the vibe back to the raw, enabling a potent and complementary mix of the hardcore underground vibes and tribes….

and back inside for another shot of me and Vibes….

……and onto the wild, diverse art within, here’s Jimmy South of War Boutique

Lyle Doghead, LRRY and friend

Elate, Obey

Anarchist Crockery by Carrie Reichart

In Dog We Trust by Jolly Good, made with real dollar bills…

  Vera Bong

Dotmaster

The toilets…

New Arrivals…

What I have posted is a fraction of what is there, you really have to get down to this 12,000 foot space and experience the most revolutionary art happening London, probably even the world has ever seen.

The future is unwritten!!!

The Mutate Britain shop is now online check it here!!!!

Families are welcome to this multisensory extravaganza!.

Full dates and opening times below. We look forwarding to seeing you!

Opening times:

Opens December 4th to December 20th – FRI / SAT / SUN

Fri – 2pm -10pm
Sat-1pm – 10pm
Sun – 12pm-9pm

We are also open 2 Wednesdays for the Portobello Winter Festival on the 9th & 16th December – 6pm -10pm

FRI & SAT (NO ENTRY AFTER 9PM)

SUN (NO ENTRY AFTER 8PM)

£2 before 6pm / £3 there after’

www.mutatebritain.co.uk

www.mutatebritain.wordpress.com

facebook mutatebritain

www.myspace.com/mutatebritain

Here’s some more pictures from the MuTate Britain Winter Show. I’m going to be adding a whole load more as a separate post at the weekend at some point as I need to rephotograph stuff to a half decent standard.

This has to be one of the best art exhibitions anywhere ever in my humble opinion and I’m very glad to have had a hand in it….If you like your surrealism apocalyptic your graffiti groundbreaking your grime genuine and your people straight up this is the place for you…..We kick of with Rubbish Fairy and House of Doll

Mear

Skore TRC

Crok

Achy

Towns

Fuel

Joe Rush

   Elate Vibes Lyle Doghead and LRRY and Pakka

Lyle Doghead and LRRY and Pakka with plane by Sam Haggerty and Dotmasters

Teddy Baden

Joe Rush

Wreckage International

Joe Rush and others

Sam Haggerty

War Boutique

Joe Rush

Sam Haggerty and Joe Rush

Obey Giant

Wolf and PXL

Andy Seize

Elate Vibes

Dotmasters aka Bagsy

Sam Hagarty and Dotmasters

Liam Cordy

Joe Rush

Mutoid Dave and others…

Elate Cazbee

Pure Indulgence

Families are welcome to this multisensory extravaganza!.

Full dates and opening times below. We look forwarding to seeing you!

Opening times:

Opens December 4th to December 20th – FRI / SAT / SUN

Fri – 2pm -10pm
Sat-1pm – 10pm
Sun – 12pm-9pm

We are also open 2 Wednesdays for the Portobello Winter Festival on the 9th & 16th December – 6pm -10pm

FRI & SAT (NO ENTRY AFTER 9PM)

SUN (NO ENTRY AFTER 8PM)

£2 before 6pm / £3 there after’

www.mutatebritain.co.uk

www.mutatebritain.wordpress.com

facebook mutatebritain

www.myspace.com/mutatebritain

‘One Foot in the Grove’ is back from the 4th of December.

‘Our festival of underground art provides a welcoming, inclusive and visually astounding experience for all ages in an atmospheric 12,000 square foot setting just off Portobello Road. Walk amongst giant sculptures, installations and unique artwork and hang out for good times at our licensed bar with proper music and delicious grub.

We are featuring loads of new work including an epic wall by Elate, Vibes and Obey Giant that cracks and crumbles the Westway to rubble before your eyes!

There’s new work by Joe Rush, a giant collaboration by Sam Haggerty and Dotmasters, new pieces by Teddy Baden, Wreckage, Seize, Code FC, Bleach, Best Ever, Zadok, Fuel, Skore, Crok, Mear, Towns, K-Guy, to name but a few, also light installations, lasers, stalls, bric a brac, curios, and anarchist crockery.

We have rehung our gallery room that offers exclusive posters, prints, originals, sculptures, photography, clothing and object d’art that make perfect prezzies for you and your discerning friends and family.

We provide that much needed alternative to the Xmas chaos of Oxford Street – so don’t miss out on the best show in town.

See giant fire-breathing robots walking, drink at our licensed bar, see and hear film shows, trains thundering past and experience an authentic friendly festival vibe in the heart of London.

This promises to be London’s biggest, most inclusive, interactive and underground street art event this Christmas.

Families are welcome to this multisensory extravaganza!.

Full dates and opening times below. We look forwarding to seeing you!

Opening times:

Opens December 4th to December 20th – FRI / SAT / SUN

Fri – 2pm -10pm
Sat-1pm – 10pm
Sun – 12pm-9pm

We are also open 2 Wednesdays for the Portobello Winter Festival on the 9th & 16th December – 6pm -10pm

FRI & SAT (NO ENTRY AFTER 9PM)

SUN (NO ENTRY AFTER 8PM)

£2 before 6pm / £3 there after’

www.mutatebritain.co.uk

www.mutatebritain.wordpress.com

facebook mutatebritain

www.myspace.com/mutatebritain

New Elate graffiti at Stik’s street art event in Mile End, East London that finishes This Sunday see blog post with full details here

Sorry for the lack of pictures and updates on this event, my camera broke, so many thanks to Art Of The State for stepping in with this, check his excellent website and blog for more pictures of this show plus lots of amazing underground and not-quite-so-underground art plus awesome photos of punk bands in furious action.

I have a new camera now so expect to resume normal service.

[WP-CUMULUS}

It runs to the end of the month in which time it will be transformed…..Stik will be painting live onto panels that line the building, so will myself, aswell as Fuel (Cold Crush Dukes), Spat (1Time), Ted Baden (Mutoid Waste) Milo and many others.

Come down for a cuppa and shoot the breeze ‘til you’re bewildered with a load of solvent damaged compulsives; you could even take a panel home to build a funky BMX ramp for the wife’s Christmas present or maybe even that kennel for the Vicar’s pitbull….(or you could just stick ‘em on the wall, yawn…)

Here’s Stik’s Press Release

Silhouettes with spray-cans glinting in the darkness have long journeyed through the East End to the austere walls of the rail arches in Mile End, an underground showcase of underground art.

Now, in broad daylight, the elegant new Mile End Arts Pavilion opens its doors to some of the most notorious graffiti artists in East London.

This unique venue offers the opportunity for you, the viewer to observe from behind glass or get down and dirty with the artists painting LIVE! (Protective masks are available on the door)

Each week will feature a new wave of artists, sourced locally with a smattering of special guest painters.

Show is open each Wednesday to Sunday from 12-6 pm

Wednesday 4^th November – Sunday 29^th November.

Press Day Saturday 8^th November

Stik

Stik curates the show and appears in it. Featuring in the Mutoid Waste Company’s current headlining event in Ladbroke Grove under the Westway, Stik is also the alternative artist featuring in this week’s Big Issue Magazine.

Whilst producing murals for authorities such as Waltham Forest and British Waterways, Stik’s black and white figures have illicitly been lurking in the cityscape for almost a decade.

Stik is proud to present a hand-picked cross-section that showcases some of the most talented and innovative artists on both the local and global stage.

Elate

A graffiti writer from London’s 1980s heyday Elate’s vision transformed and he has painted classically in oils for the last 20 years under his real name, Jon Hammer.

Now Elate is back painting the streets of East London fresher than ever. Inspired by his surreal and apocalyptic discoveries in the studio he is truly pushing the limits of the art form.

Fuel

Universally regarded as one of the true Kings of London’s ‘Golden Era’ of train graffiti, Fuel’s multi-coloured emissions are once more adorning the public domain.

Milo

A Brazilian artist prolific on the streets of East London, Milo takes an abstract figurative approach relating to nature, human behaviour, the mind, its’ movements and ways of manifesting. This results in dense, mind-boggling colour-scapes.

See Milo’s online shop here

Spat

For the last 12 years Spat has enjoyed exploring and painting the streets and derelict wasteland and tracksides of east London. Initially a pure-street ‘graffiti-bomber’ in recent years he has progressed to full colour pieces, commissions and screen prints.

Teddy Baden

Teddy Baden is part of the Mutoid Waste collective, his compulsions and love of dogs led to experimenting stencilling techniques, using varying sizes and characters of over four hundred breeds; viewing them almost as ‘alien creatures’ Teddy shows an interest in the ‘hairy ones’ almost like someone would tree types or cloud formations.

Run

In a style of his own Italian artist Run uses brush and roller to create giant, polychrome heads and faces on the streets for which he has become known and widely published.

Also appearing ;

Snoe, Smaki, Grems, Stenzilla, Suns, Roots plus many more to be confirmed.

Stik’s brand new blog is here

For those that haven’t heard, the exhibition One Foot in the Grove by Mutate Britain is currently on under the Westway, Ladbroke Grove, West London; each weekend until November the 1st 2009, 12-10pm.

The Westway is where the UK graffiti scene started in earnest when the Clash bought Futura 2000 there to paint in 1982.

The Mutoid Waste Company are a travelling band of punk-squatter mechanic artists led by Joe Rush that infected the acid house party movement with their dark and surreal bio-mechanoid humour, building scrap metal  wastelands and delirious mindscapes in a shock juxtaposition of realities guaranteed to give any trip a hair raising edge.

Think Heironymous Bosch versus Tron and you’re getting somewhere…

Inspired by the desolation of the 80s to escape into a parallel post apocalyptic universe they inspired a generation to create, myself included.

Some of the best acid parties I attended in the late Eighties and early Nineties had input from the Mutoid Waste Crew or their many splinter groups Circus Irritant, Circus Warp, Splattered Fantasy etc,  these plunged my young, impressionable and highly expanded consciousness into a Bermuda Triangle of anamorphic archetypes, cyborg spectres and grotesque apparitions in parody of human and machine form, fractured and echoed by laser and strobe, syncopated and shaken with deafening electronic bass.

The vibe was always intensely surreal, the most outrageously attired and hideously painted forms appeared from the flickering fog in theatrical convulsions, the music was the most twisted repetitive acid, deep and tribal, which stripped the senses gradually to total derangement, beat after pounding beat, until finally at one with the music the chaotic environment and your inner world became one.

Now twenty years later the Mutoids are under the Westway, and it’s not a squat, the police are not outside, the pounding house and techno has been replaced by an eclectic mix including ragga, reggae, punk, soca and rockabilly and the sweating, swaying trance-dancers have grown into bespectacled media professionals pushing buggys.

They still roll out the 303 acid sound when the fire-breathing machines get loose though…

Their amazing signature art, friendly warm family atmosphere and tongue-in-cheek vibe is however present in abundance, accessible and inspirational to the whole family, exhibited together with an array of street and graffiti art, so when I was asked to come and paint a wall I was honoured to oblige, being able to give something back to the community that gave so much inspiration to me in the mad days of the late eighties and early nineties!

It was very short notice so I improvised with some graffiti letters with a twist ….

There is no doubt in my mind from the captivated expressions on the faces of their visitors that their inspiration will grow into new and exciting ideas in years to come.

 Lyle Doghead and Lrry

Oh and by the way everything is for sale!

All photos by Jenny

So in their own words….

Below you will find details of how to get there and when it’s open. It’s one of London’s biggest underground art events ever. So don’t just hear about it, watch the video, read the info, explore the blog and get down to the show! We promise to look after you with our fully licensed bar, delicious food and inclusive festival atmosphere. There honestly, really and truly is no better way to enjoy art.

Open on : FRI 12-10pm / SAT 12-10pm / SUN 12-9pm

Ends: 01.11.2009

Location: 3-6 Acklam Rd, London, W10 5YU MAP

Entrance: £1 before 6pm – £3 thereafter

Website here Mutate Britain

It was great to meet certain influential oldskool legends for the first time and to hook up with old friends.

The book is for anyone who wants to know more about the roots of the movement, reminisce about the mad old days or learn how to bomb their name effectively. Here’s a few shots from the party- I’ve posted pics of the handstyles rather than the heads who write ‘em.

Buy your copy and see pages from the book here

Petro is showing lots of affordable paintings and prints based on the letter-form alongside more quirky and conceptual stuff.

It makes a refreshing change to see artists who are actually passionate and animated by showing their work, that is what it is all about in my book anyway and gave the evening a brilliant atmosphere.

To rock graffiti letters on panels and make it work is hard but Petro pulls it off with awesome style, check the pictures….

Petro’s show is only on this weekend 25th and 26th July 12-7 pm so I would make every effort to get down there if you can possibly manage it. There is a map further down the page, nearest tube Aldgate East,Whitechapel or Liverpool Street.

Petro has a website here

More after the jump…