NohJColey: Sprayed N Stone
Shortly after the untimely passing of Irak crew's Sacer (R.I.P.) this summer, there was an inevitable outpouring of love and loss from his many friends on the streets of New York. But there was one in particular that caught me by suprise: NohJColey's. While I believed that it was a beautiful piece and was clearly meant as a tribute, I also thought to myself that NohJ must be a glutton for punishment. There was no way that a wheatpaste of a recently deceased graffiti artist was going to go unnoticed, and not always in a good way.
Then just a few days ago I saw a new NohJColey wheatpaste, this time of the bay area graffiti artist Tie One (R.I.P.), who was shot and killed doing what he loved most back in 1998. At this point I felt compelled to ask NohJ what was motivating him to create these portraits. In the past, NohJ has always surprised me with the emotional complexity that he brings to each and every piece, and I was quite sure that his current work would be of no exception.
NohJ explains:
The initial idea actually came from a friend that thought it would be a cool idea for a street artist to do portraits of graff artists. I though it was a bad idea at first. A month later Dash Snow passed away and I thought about how that was like the third influential graff writer to pass away this year that I knew of. I began to contemplate how as a street artist the majority of my work is ephemeral but a graff writer's "fill in" or a simple marker tag has a much longer life. Being that these individuals have passed away but their work will remain on various surfaces for years to come I thought of the old saying "etched in stone", here forever. The series is entitled Sprayed N Stone which represents my attempt to further solidify their permanence.
When asked why he was paying tribute to artists that he most likely never knew, NohJ responded:
But growing up in New York I have been influenced by graffiti art in general. I do remember being in junior high school and roaming around the streets of Soho and the Lower East Side and seeing tons of Sacer's work which made me want to be a better graff artist.
As far as future pieces in the series are concerned, an IZ THE WIZ portrait is currently in the making. After that, only time can tell.
Then just a few days ago I saw a new NohJColey wheatpaste, this time of the bay area graffiti artist Tie One (R.I.P.), who was shot and killed doing what he loved most back in 1998. At this point I felt compelled to ask NohJ what was motivating him to create these portraits. In the past, NohJ has always surprised me with the emotional complexity that he brings to each and every piece, and I was quite sure that his current work would be of no exception.
NohJ explains:
The initial idea actually came from a friend that thought it would be a cool idea for a street artist to do portraits of graff artists. I though it was a bad idea at first. A month later Dash Snow passed away and I thought about how that was like the third influential graff writer to pass away this year that I knew of. I began to contemplate how as a street artist the majority of my work is ephemeral but a graff writer's "fill in" or a simple marker tag has a much longer life. Being that these individuals have passed away but their work will remain on various surfaces for years to come I thought of the old saying "etched in stone", here forever. The series is entitled Sprayed N Stone which represents my attempt to further solidify their permanence.
When asked why he was paying tribute to artists that he most likely never knew, NohJ responded:
But growing up in New York I have been influenced by graffiti art in general. I do remember being in junior high school and roaming around the streets of Soho and the Lower East Side and seeing tons of Sacer's work which made me want to be a better graff artist.
As far as future pieces in the series are concerned, an IZ THE WIZ portrait is currently in the making. After that, only time can tell.
posted by Becki Fuller at
12:07 PM
