DAVE KINSEY: SAN DIEGO STREET ARTIST EXTRAORDINAIRE
AMERICAN GRAPHIC DESIGNER AND STREET ARTIST, DAVE KINSEY STARTED OUT PASTING HIS WORK ON WALLS AND NOW PRODUCES PRINTS, CANVASES, WOODPRINTS AND SCULPTURES – he’s even decorated a hotel room with his paintings. Hailing from San Diego he set up the influential design agency with fellow designer Shepard Fairey, of Obey Giant fame. Fused caught up with him to talk about his work.
The tools of the trade that you use vary greatly – which do you prefer to work with?
My work utilizes a range of mediums – wood, canvas, chipboard, oil and acrylic paints with found materials, paper, and pen and ink. I tend to like working with these but also dimensional stuff for my sculptural murals. My biggest limit in regard to my personal fi ne art is getting the work to and from its final destination. A lot of galleries I exhibit with don’t have huge budgets for these types of things, so I usually work with what I can.
How long did it take you to develop your own personal style?
I’ve been developing my own style since I started art school in ‘89. I studied and did renditions of other artists work to better understand what made their work dynamic, compelling or controversial. From there I worked my own style into what I felt I wanted to convey from what I had learned.
Which artists influenced your style?
Mostly Kenny Dread (Sense) and Jaz One from Atlanta, Georgia, where I attended art school.
Any street artists to look out for?
Herbert Baglione’s work is really nice. I’m also diggin’ Robert Hardgrave though I won’t say he’s a street artist – just one talented farmer.
What do you make of Banksy and his work?
I think it’s brilliant. He’s a true original and really pushes his boundaries.
What was it like hanging out with Space Invader in Paris?
It was very interesting. He has an amazing sense of humour and simply lives life. We connected in Paris when we got arrested one night while bombing. The police held us for seven hours, just harassing us, mostly him though cause he has been arrested 15 other times and I didn’t speak French. They wanted to make an example of him for me. In the end, I think they were just bored that night and fucking with us. I love his stuff – he has a very interesting way of interpreting his ideas.
Based on your experience if a street artist is arrested what should they do?
Don’t even try bad-mouthing to the cops. They are in control, not you – even if you’re right. You can always hit the police station alley on your way out.
After all these years you must be pretty adept with the bucket, brush and paste – how long does it take you to decorate a site?
Minutes. That’s one of the reasons I took up pasting. It’s exact, fast and if it’s destroyed or buffed out by dawn, no big deal.
How do you choose sites for your work?
I do feel it’s important that what I do integrates into the natural landscape and has its place. The more people that can see it, obviously the better. That’s pretty much the reason I do stuff on the street. It’s gotta reach everyone and not be segregated or limited in it’s exposure to the average person.
What’s the most interesting/dangerous place that you have bombed?
One time in Dallas I climbed this old fire escape to hit this roof spot that was eye level with the freeway. When I got to the top the ladder on the 5th floor, it started to shift a bit causing me to almost slip and fall. It was a pretty bugged-out experience, knowing I could have fallen to my death just to hit some damn roof spot. Makes me think twice now when I climb stuff.
If there were no barbed wire fences, no police and no CCTV cameras where would be the dream location for your work?
I’d say nowhere, because that rush of getting caught and knowing it’s somewhat illegal is half the fun.
Your work has appeared on hotel room walls, skateboards, canvas, woodblocks, snowboards, drainage pipes, fake breasts, trainers, guitars, purses – what surface do you intend to work on next to add to this impressive array?
Most things you can just adapt to – it just takes longer than others sometimes. Also, I’m not big on gimmicks as a medium. I prefer real breasts as well.
In the UK some people describe graffiti as “urban expressionist art” whereas the police and local authorities prefer to call it “vandalism” – what’s your take on this and would you differentiate between the pasted poster work you do and that of your common street tagger or stencil artist?
Hard to say. Street art, tagging, stencils, etc, are both vandalism and urban expressionism. I guess everything has its place. Some accept it, while some just hate it. The bottom line is that it’s impossible to legally justify utilizing public or private space unless you buy it. So you just have to work the system and be smart with what you’re doing and try not to piss anyone off too much. I personally tend to pick spots that are public not private or are abandoned. Public space always brings up controversy.
I mean, who does own it, the city, the tax-payers, the mayor? You can certainly walk down most streets in a civilized place the way you wish to walk, but what about taking it one step further and painting one block of the sidewalk solid green? Or even better a 15% shade darker? Is that vandalism, self-expression or just a sidewalk block that is a shade darker than the other?
Of course then you’re representing every other citizen whether they like it or not. Just like hideous advertisements that are in our faces 24/7. I guess without some systemized control, we’d all go mad.
Words: Simon Creasey
First appeared in Fused Magazine issue 36
