NUMERO DUE - ENRG
As a writer who doesn’t publish on Instagram he isn’t used to exposure. He wasn’t very convinced at the beginning and behind his orange balaclava he seemed more interested in correctly preparing his bong. Once reassured that he wouldn’t have to talk about cosmological theories like an Oracle in ecstasy, a little laugh come out of the deadpan balaclava:
Let’s talk about graffiti then! So you didn’t prepare any question?
Nah man, we’re freestyler, but if you tell me who your favourite writer is it might already be an interesting start.
Damn, I don’t have one! I have some that I like but I always had this idea that you shouldn’t have a favourite writer or you will be influenced. Its like those who play football: Maradona is Maradona, there’s nobody better, but in Graffiti it isn’t like that, things change overtime.
Surely there was the French school of the 2000/2010 era, who at first determined our imaginary a bit, earlier with the most historic crews and later with the more modern crews which turned it upside down.
I’m attracted to the change and the evolution of what stems from a common thread. Also the berlin school, by having still today a strong character has always aroused much interest in my researches. I won’t name the writers because I’m not a snitch ahahah I’m joking, but it’s only right that each one researches on his own, and finds what he likes, without me influencing the taste of anybody by telling them what to like.
And this things of Idols and heroes… everything depends on the matchup, the playground, the level you have and the moves you know, the mood of the person that day, there is no absolutism in my mind. And for every tournament there is the final battle like Dragon Ball Final Bout!
There are a lot of very good Writers who you don’t see often, so it’s “yeah, but he doesn’t paint a lot”. He doesn’t paint a lot for what people generally consider as painting, or rather how much people talk and see online about him: the same old challenge on number of painted trains, collected systems, and different train models, to me it’s all a bit bullshit.
What a writer does beyond this has probably, in truth, more value. There are Americans who don’t paint trains at all, but they’re one better then the other!
I never cared about that challenge, the most fun part of it is to talk bullshit with friends on the way there and back, I go mostly for them, on the yard I find it more or less always the same routine. Also by changing places it’s always a succession of things, you always check the same things and I’m a person that hates habits, always finding myself in the same situation where I can already imagine everything that’s about to happen.
I find the street more stimulating, two throw ups the same night are two different places, that means two different stations, buildings, streets, moods, different fuels ahahah. Then you see them again! You have time to watch them and understand what you could have done better, and to notice something new which may unlock a new idea. Seeing graffiti with your own eyes is something else then seeing them in a picture.
When you do a lot of panels it almost becomes a routine to go to the station and to wait to take a pic, you don’t even look at the painting for a matter of time, the more you stay there the more pictures you take so that later you can pick out the best one, and when you’ll want to see it later you’ll only have the picture, which most of the time loses a lot of details.
Moreover the street influences you into painting in a different way. If you paint a train there are always the same proportions, but if you do a shutter one time it’ll be short and large, and the next tall and tight, you have to change how you do things, it’s more stimulating, and genuine maybe… it’s not like you can bring the a sketch because you don’t know exactly what you’re going to paint.
That’s the reason I love to do tags, it’s a matter of seconds. You don’t have to think about it, the tag will be different depending on the spot. I don’t like to have it pre-set. If they all come out good you’ve done a good job!
Knowing the instruments and how to use all of them also does a lot. My favourite is the mop even more then the spraypaint. Those drippings… I’d go out only to use them, actually I already do it ahahah but with the right inks, not those who are lready in them because they only do stains!
(but with the right ink, not the one yhat comes already in... it just stains!)
When did you start to push with the tags?
When Covid started I went crazy. I was bored a lot of the time, and there was nothing to do. Before it started I was decreasing because I wasn’t having a lot of fun, they came out all the same, I wasn’t stimulated and I didn’t have new ideas. So I started to deconstruct what I had, stretching them, lowering the center of gravity. That kind of research worked well for myself.
Then I did them with a high center of gravity, then vertical. I always have to change them because if I go out and do five tags that look the same, I’ll be bored. The fun part is the roulette, I don’t want to know how they’ll come out! When the right tag comes out, in the right spot, with the right tool it’s the final trio. Only then I’m satisfied! I did a video for Grog last year, now I would do it all differently, I could directly film a new one ahah.
There is a comment under that video which asks: "Serious question, why do you call the worst writers for these types of videos?"
Well, man, I give it my all, at least I don’t get bored and when someone sees something mine I hope he'll find always something new, not something he’s already seen a ton of times. And the recognizability stays!
You sketch with Paint right? When did you quit paper?
I always did, also when I was a kid because Trash PSC did incredible drawings and everybody wanted to be able to do them. He did them with the line puller, they came out all straight, it was good for that time.
Now I restarted doing it because when I’m at work if I do it on paper it’s obvious that I’m not working, so I solved it with this trick: I keep a tab open as if I had a paper on the side and I draw with the mouse ahahah.
The big difference with paper is the slowness of it, when I write with the hand I do it very fast to maintain the instinct and the gestures, which then make the stuff recognizable. The accuracy that I have with the mouse gives me time to calculate, to think about it more and therefore to change the shapes and to assimilate for the moment I’ll do it with the by hands.
It’s strange that you use something digital to slow yourself down, meanwhile for the whole world it’s the contrary, everybody uses it furiously.
Something else that is fun to do on paint is to use the distortion tool. You do a sketch and then you can stretch it, enlarge it, and pull it and then assimilate the new shapes and spaces that form themselves and so on.
I enjoy a lot balancing the full and the empty: if a piece is too full, I will stretch it and everything changes.
Not the tags tho, those are already not straight themselves ahahah but I play a lot with that method on throw ups and it’s really cool! Because it’s always the same, it always has the same shapes and proportions but if you stretch it its always that same throw up but it changes!
How did it start with your first friends?
At the beginning of high school, we met Trash one morning: we put a sticker on the schedule at the bus station, and he came and told us “They’re going to remove it in a half hour, it’s on the schedule!” With my friends we started strong in the suburbs, but it’s not the right way to do it. You can’t just puke out stuff everywhere like you have to in the big cities to get noticed. You have less chances to paint and you have to make them count, you have to do few cool pieces. It can't be painted everywhere in the countryside, because then they start cleaning, looking for you. It doesn't make sense to bomb everything here.
There are also two screenshots of Google Maps, that I frequently use to check the spots and to see the graffiti again. I do it mostly on the highways because when you try to take a picture a truck passes punctually before you ahahah
The conversation gets interrupted because Sasha must leave. He stops the recording after almost an hour, even if it could have surely went on like we all knew, even with Enrg initial hesitation. There are a lot of thoughts and names that we preferred not to disclose, on the contrary of his genuine laughs that loquaciously represent his approach to graffiti. Away from Instagrams voyeurism, his writing lays in the energy that flows in the arm that draws those powerful letters.
