I’ve been posting a lot of graffiti based stuff lately, but I never forget my love for good old oil on canvas, so here’s a little something I knocked up way back in the late 90’s called ‘Living Under The Lines’.

I realise it’s already on my main site but thought it deserved a post on the blog as the definitions of what categorisation it may fall into seem have been redefined

I suppose now they call it Lowbrow/ Pop Surrealism. I like to think of it maybe as Urban Visionary but hell what’s in a name, label, tag, school or ism?

It is what it is.

To me at the time it was just a feeling I wanted to get onto canvas. I think I hit the mark.

I thought I’d drag it out and post it as it seems to have gained new significance…

Protect The Future: Graffiti by Elate 2005

What strange new lands coalesce and take form….

as the frontiers of technology meet the want of mankind?

In the time leading up to this work an unyielding ‘itch’ had gotten into my head, provoked by awareness of the instability, inefficiency and unaccountability of the systems which govern and power our planet. Every night I watched the news the ‘itch’ would increase, as report upon report drew my attention to the precarious threads which hold our precious reality together, and the self-serving and dangerous attitudes and actions of our so called leaders.

Whatever concrete ideas or concepts gave rise to this painting are open for interpretation, but it may bear familiarity to some, to me it reflects the chaotic and irresponsible systems in place in these times. On finishing it I felt an air of calm, but no less horrified acceptance of their state.

It finally found its’ form when I was at an illegal sound system gathering in an vast abandoned power station in east London in around 2004. In the half light afforded by the occasional flash of strobe and searing laser along metal pipes I could make out the shapes of the defunct generators and machinery as they threw disfigured shadows over the walls and floor, various small rooms and alcoves came to my attention ,wires hanging precariously like cobwebs, rust bleeding into the decrepit machinery, silhouettes swayed and jerked malevolently as the electronic heartbeat from the sound rig shook my bones with it’s discordant regularity.

Doom chimed its’ pulse that night and with the clang of the building it became one with the hypnotic kick-drum and impeccably syncopated jerking of bones that had broken out like a fever by the warm bass of the eight foot high speaker stacks, as I approached the banging shook my teeth in my head and adrenalin rushed as the ear-splitting bass vibrated my intestines in frequency and my clothes pressed against my body as if in a wind.

I walked around the towering speakers to the back of the rig and saw the huge illuminated amp stacks, red equaliser LEDs pulsed in time with the heartbeat of the gathering, an enclave of soul power and communion in a dark, abandoned industrial wasteland…I looked up from the black sweaty floor following  the snaking wires that were so precariously holding this magic together and saw my friend JP Malfaiteur sound system operator, backdrop customer and the ‘host’ of the night with a head mounted torch nonchalantly jamming enormous power flexes into an extremely dangerous and deep looking junction box in the wall of the building. Rust and condensation dripped down the walls and into puddles around him on the floor, his Rottweiler glowered menacingly at his feet, then came and licked my hand.

JP saw me, nodded and came across to say hi, something had clicked inside my head with a resounding ‘snap’ this image had transformed in a flash from an ‘itch’ to a skeleton of a concept, one that I knew I would enjoy bringing to life.

I felt that I’d made a great leap in that instant and went round to the front of the rig to enjoy the rest of the weekend in the distorted and funky style associated with his sound system.

On getting home and sleeping for a day or two I began sketching an outline, I concentrated on the ‘itch of doom’ again, considering the multiple analogies awoken by my epiphany.

I instantly built my square ‘mandala’ around JP’s junction box, the core of the ‘vehicle’ and began fleshing it out by drawing on the state of repair of our planet’s vital systems, echoed so well in the dilapidated power station. From this point auto-pilot kicked in and everything literally fell into place.

As I pondered the nature of civilization clinging on to light in an encroaching sea of space and searched for stylistic themes to impart this strange unease my sketches gave way to several impossible objects, constructions with angles which could never possibly exist in three dimensions, but which look as if they should, for an uneasy moment.

My sense of helplessness in the face of daily horror stories of unsustainability of our civilisation and corruption of our leaders and systems and the terrifying certainty of mankind’s doom became through this painting an exercise in analogy and a vent of my frustration, and hopefully a piece of art that will stand the test of any time we have left.

The sketch

The ‘lay-in’ begins, a sketch in paint on canvas

The structure firmly in place I begin to fill in the colour

The finished piece- spot the impossible objects…

You can buy a signed and numbered limited edition print of this painting in a Giclee edition of 100 on Hanenmuhle photo rag paper for £50 plus postage from jenny@jonhammer.com

 (the one in the snap is not signed or numbered but you get the idea!).

This is a sketch for a painting I did in 2001, I thought it worth posting due to the amount of possibilities in the outline, and my interpretation of it. Following is the finished painting…

There used to be a mini ‘hall-of-fame’ down there with good graffiti art on as many as seven walls by both local and London artists including myself Ashe and Evade but the council ripped down all the 8 foot high, art covered skate-ramps and installed ridiculous 3 foot high concrete ‘skate-bumps’ with no vertical surfaces, thus making the park unsuitable for graffiti art and of limited interest to most older skaters.

They also replaced the adjacent basketball wall illustrated below with a tubular metal frame with a hoop, effectively ‘cleansing’ all graffiti art from the skate park, hence the town in one quick and convenient operation.

The stoners, jugglers and dreadlocked mellow types who used to harmlessly congregate there to skate the ramps, enjoy the vibe and play their guitars in the sun instantly moved on never to return, as the town council no doubt hoped they would. However all is far from rosy for these well meaning do-gooders.

Upon cleansing the place of the younger generations culture its’ atmosphere changed immediately, the new council-friendly ‘skate-bumps’ were covered in abusive and obscene graffiti overnight, something which was never a problem before.

Now I hear the place is controlled by gangs of aggressive ‘townies’ who filled the vacuum and find the new low ‘skate-humps’ perfect as benches where they can get drunk, light fires, smash bottles and start fights, things which also were never a problem before.

The elderly and families who used to sit down to watch the fun on fine days do so at their peril now!

Is there a lesson here somewhere?

Finished outline on tracing paper

Half finished wall

 Finished piece

And close up….