It has been a year where creatively I have made a few twists and turns. I returned to figurative work for a quick spell and dug through old photos. In 2001 up to 2003 I would use reference material for a lot of wall work. Sometimes it was cellular or biological material, other times photos of places where I had visited. It was archival and strange. Things were hidden in graffiti structures. I made some works on board and paper that were about decay and graffiti this year. 

Going into the new year I can see a clear theme based on figurative work that moves away from archives and graffiti structure into themes of rubbish and refuses. The signs on buses and trains that say ‘report rubbish and graffiti’ are the inspiration for the new year. I keep trying to get into the core problems of graffiti and a society that creates so much waste. Some of the images I am referencing for the new works on walls and paper are older photographs I have taken almost two decades ago. 

Rubbish though has graffiti-like forms and structure without needing to worry about graffiti structure. Maybe in the ghettoes of New York wild style was a way of exploring and escaping decay. The lessons learnt were the chaotic nature of decay and poverty. People reacted and started to change their environment through intervention. What I am doing though is simply looking at the problem and trying to find something creative within the problem. I want to extract the creativity out of what is obsolete.