December

my rise to greatness is slow but not debated
a particularly prophetic day
painted a wall then made my way across the country like a man with no name
machined to the city
a carriage in december
the cold outside not enough to quell these embers
four walls and more, man nextto me absorbed in reading a book about one of many wars
or a coule sat beside each other, both some scummy sufferes
who shot their looks across
but cross legged on the seat ignored and hushed up
quieted the mind listened weird growls and guitars that seemed out of time
Sat down on the floor
amongst the grids of complications tht make up the shed im in
iron, wine and skin
tired mind and slim

near christmas, sat alone like an eclipse

that profound sense of family aint for me
rather a paintful type of surgery
buy em all a muffin and hope they dont speak ill of you
paste over all their habits with a shiny mound of something new
forget the past for a day
forget you never speak

I think I found my baseline frequency
the hum that hymns at the core of me
the choir that chords these parts of me
that melody thats task was to be trapped and tune my flesh accordingly
its a hidden one
a tao type titan
one who move the wind but is nought to see
I know how it went but couldnt tell you what its face was like in imagery

because years ago I buried a body and built a new one from its bones
and years ago I swore id never know again a mind that cold 
and thought I might disguise and hide behind a name thats not my own
now I find a power pillared like rifle striking lightning fighting rides and striding through
im on the edge of unlockingit again
and I cant pretend like that sight is something I cant comprehend
I know myself, warts n all
and though I may flatter, fall and fail in equal measured opportunity
I buried death
and survived what came next
but it still doesnt replace their steps

so you can keep your plasticized purpose
i’ll be trying to piece a new part of a universe
a particuarly prophetic day
caught in a haze

I slept on a mattress alone in the front room
the flickering tv kept me awake in its muted quiet
he did not recognise that it was christmas
asleep in his cared for accomodation
I the proverbial and patient son
did muse over what it meant to lose almost everyone at once.
Christmas aint easy for some, an effort that rewards are none.
Counting ghosts and missed existences upon your fingers like you tally crumbs

how your family drifts hold it tight and watch it like that melting snow slip.

We sit and we drink and we think
we sit and we think and we see that the brink be away from us for now so we begin
let it sink in and process what progress can be poised for the new years begin

Medium & Message; An Interview with Ludvig (12ozprophet 2015)

One of my first, and definitely still one of my favourite interviews this was conducted for 12ozprophet in 2015. Ludvig isn't your ordinary writer, more at home using a brush and house paint than with a spray can his style is the epitome of what is now classed as 'ignorant'. Far from ignorant though Ludvig provides astute criticism and comment on his beloved culture and espouses a philosophy of freedom and happiness that is of the upmost importance to an art than was born of a want of freedom and expression without limit.

Could you introduce yourself and give us a little bit about how you got started? what first drew you to the artform etc. 

I write Ludvig. I represent NNC, 1LS, MLC, EE and 1%. I first started a long while back… I don’t really remember how I got started or exactly when, there was no big bang moment. At school I drew on stuff and practised letters, but never really got anything done. There were other kids who just had these amazing handstyles, the way that people did letters in their tags back then was so good, the letters were kind of broad at the bottom, sort of squat, with smaller top ends. It took me a couple of years after that to get started. I wasn’t really that naturally drawn to writing as a package of elements in the same way that I saw happening with some others, there was really no musical connection for me, I liked the punk graffiti and some of the people writing band names, I also liked a lot of the more political and protest statements done with roller paint, you used to see a lot of these on bridges and along motor ways. You don’t really see it anymore. I think that people thought it was a good way to get a message out at that point in time, now it’s a pretty limited way. What drew me to writing was a mix of wanting to create something while not being the best at art and wanting to make a mess and irritate people. It was a bit like prodding people with a stick and then running away. I was definitely angsty and angry, but then I’m still that way now… I didn’t really think of it as an art form, it was just something that we did, the same way that it happens today, wherever you end up your name ends up.

Sometimes you see pieces that seem to have no humour and seemingly no passion; just something painted by some Norris, fuck that. My stuff is about having fun and making a mess, it’s about not really giving too much of a fuck, I like for things to look weird, childish and a bit off key

In modern graffiti we're seeing a lot of writers take up a deliberately naive style, a lot like yourself - where expression and release seem to take precedence over technical ability etc, could you describe / explain your style a little?

My feelings on this are a bit warped and mixed. I can paint technically well with a spray can and did that for years, it wasn’t until later that I stopped with that and found a different path. So I really appreciate some of the technical pieces, having said that, some of the works I see are clearly executed amazingly, but they just leave me cold, I can’t see the human element in them. I just don’t want to paint like that. So at the moment being able to express and being able to do it quickly are definitely important. Sometimes painting a more technical piece in the past would get me stressed, I never feel like that anymore. I use the first line I draw every time, never really making any corrections. I strongly believe that the first line is the right line and should be worked with, no cut backs, no corrections, no faffing... It is important to me that a piece is expressive and has some depth to it, not just a picture of a word... I’m also not a big fan of pieces that all look the same or where you can’t see any of the character of the person behind them; it’s confusing to see a piece with no character coming through in it. Sometimes you see pieces that seem to have no humour and seemingly no passion; just something painted by some Norris, fuck that. My stuff is about having fun and making a mess, it’s about not really giving too much of a fuck, I like for things to look weird, childish and a bit off key, I’m definitely not looking for any kind of balance or flow or clean details with thin lines, a million fades... The style is about releasing energy and expressing something, painting freely, fast and with a sense of fun or anger or whatever it is that you’re feeling. It is also very important to me that the pieces are letter based, I am always just writing my name, I’m not really that interested in doing pieces which are not based on words at the moment. Occasionally I’ll do a big blockbuster or two just to check that I can still do ‘normal’ letters or just to shut someone up when there’s too much talk of weird styles and lack of letter structure. 

It appears youre a fan of the multimedia approach to pieces, which is really refreshing to see, could you talk about decision to use a brush?

I nearly always use a roller and emulsion, bucket paint. I find it much faster to use a roller, which, for me, is good because I’m very impatient. There are also other factors at play too, I like to be in contact with the surface, using a roller does this; with a can you’re always just off the surface. I like the reach of the arm to make a line and then the swipe quickly back to start filling in, it’s a fast way to paint. I never really sketch out a piece and then fill it in, I generally just do one letter at a time and then go backwards and forwards along the piece until it’s finished. The downside to this is that I’m pretty bad at scaling, so pieces tend to come out big in scale. Also, roller paint is easy to come by too, cheapish to buy and often to be found in skips or thrown out onto the street. I do use cans sometimes, either in conjunction with mulsh or very rarely alone. What I find though is that I can’t really get the overall look that I want for a piece, I lose the fluidity and spontaneity of it with just cans, it feels forced and fiddly; slow and lacking energy. I admire writers who use only cans and manage to make their pieces look spontaneous and full of energy. I’ll occasionally use cans for the outline, I do like the dusty look you get from a can with a stock cap, I like the 1970’s look of doing that.

NYHC, HXC, punk, the rave scene, DnB, techno, metal and hardcore t-shirt imagery, religious and cultural symbols, booze, illegal subs, films, tattoos and flash, fine art, really shit art, outsider art, violence, sex, female genitalia, animals. stupid things that happen when you’re out and about...

 As it differentiates so much from the norm, where do you place it in terms of graffiti? 

To me it feels like the same thing. I know that the pieces end up looking a little different from the average, but I think that most writers would want their stuff to look different from other pieces. If your stuff doesn’t stand out then it’s most likely not going to get any shine. There haven’t been many writers doing the dirty style in the UK over the years, but in Europe there have been some guys really pushing it for a while. It does look different, to me that is part of the point, the point is not for everything to look the same, the point is not to stick to the rules… Not for me anyway. I’m not sure where I’d really place it, it obviously is an outlier and not that close to the traditional fundamentalist New York style, but it has the same root. It is no more freakish in my mind than people who claim to be writers and just paint large spray painted murals with no letters for corporate money, for me they’re further from ‘graffiti’ than I am.

Why do you feel what you are doing is important to graffiti?

Haha, that is a difficult question to answer without coming across as a total tosser! I’m not sure that it really is that important to graffiti as a whole, but it is very important to me, it is a way of life for me, or a strong part of my life. I have a compulsion to paint and try to do a fair bit, it’s fun. If it was important to writing in any way, I would stay that it is asking for a bit more open mindedness and it is another voice saying that it’s ok to be yourself, to do what you like... Not to always feel you need to conform, but if that’s what you want to do then that’s cool too. I know that there are people who do like my stuff, but there are also plenty who don’t like it at all, some people get so angry about it, it’s funny. Maybe that is important, it does seem to make people think something or to form an opinion, it’s not always pretty, so it does push against all the ‘pretty pictures…’ I think that it’s most probably just important in that it adds to the diversity of what exists as ‘graffiti’, all writers are important in this sense. It’s also important that not everything looks the same, there is room for big messy stuff too. 

working in a sketch book is good too but you are generally geographically more restrained, sat in one place, with writing you are on your toes, seeing and doing things often with other people. I think graffiti not only expresses something of the character of the person behind it, but also about their energy.

Where do you draw your influences from now? is there anything from outside this culture that feeds into it? 

Most of the things that influence me are not from the world of writing, there are exceptions like early and mid 1970’s pieces and some of the styles coming out of Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Czech Republic… What mostly influences me are things that I see or hear, this comes out in the pieces and the little bits of text that I try to add to them, I’m inspired by things like music, hardcore, NYHC, HXC, punk, the rave scene, DnB, techno, metal and hardcore t-shirt imagery, religious and cultural symbols, booze, illegal subs, films, tattoos and flash, fine art, really shit art, outsider art, violence, sex, female genitalia, animals. stupid things that happen when you’re out and about… All sorts of stuff... Sometimes I can get really inspired by one thing and then mine that for a bit, other times I’ll just flick through an old sketchbook for reference. Other graffiti doesn’t really inspire me much, I like seeing other people’s stuff especially if it’s not in a HoF and sometimes it’ll buzz me up to want to paint, but I think that’s just being competitive and wanting to do more. Sometimes I’ll see other peoples stuff and I’ll think ‘what a fucking waste of paint…’ I know people think that about my stuff all the time too though.

Your instagram features a lot of pastel drawings of phrases, could you bit about those? 

When you’re using oil pastels it’s a bit like using a roller and sloppy paint on a surface, they’re both slightly unpredictable mediums, they’re both scrappy and dirty. They’re both kind of scribbly and messy and scratchy. I find the work in the sketch books fun to do and they’re quick too, you can get whatever is on your mind out pretty quick, it’s part release and part self-actualisation. Part of it is also just about using what is to hand, I’ve been using highlighters a fair bit too, the reason for that is just because I had some, so they got used… I also like using acrylic on canvas and in the books, I’ll mess about with any medium that I can get my hands on really, it’s all good and challenging in its own way.

I think with graffiti, it really allows you to remove a lot of baggage from experience and get close to some real honesty regarding things, you seem very in touch with and understanding of how to use the medium to get a certain feeling. is this true of your opinion of graffiti in general? do you use it in the same way? to get to grips with a certain part of experience that you can't with other art forms? perhaps because of its inherent illegality etc? 

Yeah, I would agree with this in general. I think that writing is a great escape for lots of people. Actually, I think that this is why there are lots of people who paint pieces that end up looking the same whatever their mood, because they are in a different place mentally when they’re painting, not really feeling the over-riding emotion that they may have at that point. What I mean is that an individual can paint when they’re sad or when they’re happy and the pieces may look the same. For me it’s different, how I’m feeling comes through and has to come out in a piece, if I’m feeling sad or angry it’ll be clear to see. Or if I have something to say I’m going to say it in the piece. Sometimes it’s better to go and paint a nasty, energetic and aggressive piece rather than punching someone in the face. Painting is a cathartic process too, I use it to push energy out, working with rollers and bucket paint helps with that, it has an intense immediacy, its full of energy. On your last question, yes, it does reach places that other forms of creation cannot, it is dirty and nasty, and generally on a large scale, less restricted. It is also fun because of that… Writing gets you out and about, painting canvas or working in a sketch book is good too, but you are generally geographically more restrained, sat in one place, with writing you are on your toes, seeing and doing things often with other people. I think graffiti not only expresses something of the character of the person behind it, but also about their energy.

Artistically it is important to me to paint a lot, as much as I can, I try to paint over 100 pieces a year, otherwise I don’t think I’d be able to move forward and develop enough, personally, it’s just important to me to carry on; I enjoy it!

What have the complaints been against your work?

Nothing that I care about at all, but lots of funny things that make me chuckle. People love to make up rules when actually there really aren’t any in this game, the only things that act as boundaries for us are our own personal moral codes, what we are, and, are not willing to do and our own codes of respect. Generally people do the right thing, but often also they don’t. I don’t see any particular reason why people should respect their elders or their betters, or often those worse than them; that’s really just old fashioned thinking which is put in place by people trying to maintain the status quo. It’s funny how people pretend to hate the set up of the establishment and the way that we are governed and then, as soon as they are able to, they try to establish the same type of phoney system in their favour, I see this so much... ‘You must respect this’, ‘X is a king’, ‘Y can’t paint over Z’ etc, blah blah.

There's a real importance laid on progression and experimentation, is there an end goal you're heading towards? artistically or personally?

Yes and no, when I was painting often with Bino a few years ago, we were constantly pushing to progress and talked about what the logical end would be. There was never an end goal as such, because if there was then that may indicate that it is not worth painting anymore, and that was definitely never the intention. We played with minimising pieces into just lines and dots or smears of buffed out colour. We painted a lot of walls like that and ended up providing a lot of decent backgrounds for other people’s pieces in the process. Haha. I still focus on progression and love to experiment, I never paint the same piece twice, so every piece is different. I will push off in one direction and explore that for a bit and then do something different when it feels right. I will often follow a direction to see where it goes. However, to really experiment you need to paint hundreds of pieces a year, otherwise it is just not possible to explore anything properly, or you need to hit the blackbook hard as a proxy. Artistically it is important to me to paint a lot, as much as I can, I try to paint over 100 pieces a year, otherwise I don’t think I’d be able to move forward and develop enough, personally, it’s just important to me to carry on; I enjoy it! I am not aiming for any kind of perfect style, because there is no such thing, it is different for everyone. I remember people looking at pieces and telling me ‘look, that’s tuff, that’s the perfect style.’ But, for me it rarely is, I look at it and see the same piece I have seen tens of times before, sometimes exactly the same outline… So, yes, progression and experimentation are really important to me, they are some of the key reasons that I carry on.

I think that the main thing it has taught me is that it’s ok just to be yourself. With most things in life it seems that there are rules, restrictions, regulations or you have to please someone else or work to a brief, with graffiti and art in general you can just do your own thing. You can just do what pleases you, art is the same, unless you choose to make it something that you need to earn money from... People are still going to judge you and critique your work, but who the fuck cares? My friend Insane says that all graffiti writers are mad to varying degrees; I think that he has a point. There are a lot of good crazies amongst us and a few bad ones; some very loyal people and some absolute snakes, some people who will tell you things to your face and others who are too cowardly to do so and talk behind your back. There are a lot of negatives, but also a lot of positives. Graffiti allows you to have a lot of experiences that you wouldn’t have had otherwise and to meet a lot of interesting characters along the way. It is also generally a meritocracy, it’s not exactly, you still get hype and people trying to control things in their own favour, but in general you reap rewards if you put the energy into it.

@ludvigism
You can see his work at ZAP Gallery Liverpool from the 7th OCT.

Lefebvre

A man with no teeth sat in a mound of bottles and smiled at me, before lifting the can to his mouth

Nestled between two sections - one silent and one full of sound
I went there to listen to the bats, have a beer and sit down - most of my time is spent wandering around
paint teaches you to interract with things in a sacred way - you grow with the place you paint because you appreciate it being
it makes a place sacred.
things are navigated by them
who there they when? did big burners back to back by the wall next to the old railway track.
it cant be understood by those not initiated, those not gone from place to place with - those not trudged undergrowth and miles of mud with
Thorns, thorns and thorns
Trains, lights and dawn

The way the lines intersected, spent ages looking and how those lines criss crossed and made some savage energy along the wall.
sat with my limbs like that, some kinda yoga position. mimiced what i saw.
 thought more about the blanks, planned maps of meaning. what colours, this and that.

A little old lady on an electric scooter confronted me as I emerged
glances had, not said a word

My Sons Name Is Festival

Never been one to hide from the fight but I might dip and strike again, collect another force and form a plan to penetrate your friends, plan to have you disappear for 10, end up water lung like concrete clogs see we be saying never saw him again
Angst in this hunchback clap a few tracks, back with the sickness sip a few bhang
Slack with the riddim gonna get yourself slapped
Cos tact ain't a tool that I use to attract

My sons name is festival
He said to me whilst we stood crowded round the door of a hurtling train set for Jaipur, it was 6am and I caught him chanting at the sunrise birthing from the mountains the distance.
He offered an open blue foil wrapper in which was nestled some brown substances, I thought rude to reject so took it ecxpecting nuts – rather not, instead it was chewing tobacco. Quite a shock right considering on this tour id already taken opium.

He then introduced me to his family, told me he was an english teacher (this I thought funny as his interpretation of my native tongue wasn't great)
and then gave me a breakfast of a shortbread type cake made of ghee, wheatflour and baking powder I apprehensive in my acceptance of it duely forgot all imagined ills when it touched my mouth, beautiful.

My suns name is festival.

Stay lit with a short fuse well travelled
Keep my eyes out searching for that high mountain
Don't stay put

Now my timings not quite perfect and I admit that
Bit off beat, but bite this nah that no easy feat you see geeze
On a Sleepy Sunday in the rain
I penned a couple notes of pain
My many muscles spoke of troubles blend again
A stale hour absorbed in name
But been A hot minute since I knew her frame
Still, Set fire to a piece of parchment
As my fingers dribble with the question of conversation with you

"Chitodgadh & it's very nice place to see"
I hung out the train doors hurtling towards Jaipur,
I told him my name was Ben and he said
'Pen? What a name!'

Push

Beneath the shadow of the mountains we watched Hindus attempt immortality through immersion and chanting, it is quite a sight to behold man give himself to the gods in the hope of some sweet taste of safety.

I couldn't comprehend this mass enmeshed across the ocean over there 

I couldn't comprehend as the sun did set 

As orange crested building bricks I couldn't see only heard attempts

Your vocal chords they undulate over a PA system across a lake 

The crowd a call to meditate 

So loud I felt reverberate 

I cannot fathom why man would make himself immortal

Though immortal he must be

To hope to find a slice of peace 

Amongst this pile of trash and steam 

Your flesh is weak

Your arms they bend

Your bones they break

Your vision weak 

Your heart is hurt

But song is never stone 

And God is never done

So sing another and long hope 

This water dirty full of shit and socks 

Found a fish float upon its shores

Eyes all wide 

Brahmas tears did not cleanse

The chemicals we expend 

Did rot and row its own natures hand away into its end

Despite your effort for eternity your chemicals do not disappear

Your flesh is weak

Your shit is strong

All holy this, all holy that

But open sewers

Do death attract

I alone a vessel did wake in wicked hour and float with them in crooked song and hymn

 I lost myself in prayer later on

Inspecting every twitch my mind did make in remembering 

All memory is recall anyway they say

So I guess I summoned up a thousand lives from across the lake

Felt all their fates

Lax Sapien

I planted shrooms
waited for while, sipped shots with the moon
breathing in gloom, chatting gaps with a lesser of devils from an unholy few
with cider we rattled all cages, no shot low enough for debasing
every idea and weight of those cases, beyond good and evil is where had we claimed shit
we kicked it a dymanic loose duo, swung round all the haunts that the populace follow
I absorb from the roots and then shoot
play chess with the sleuthest of crews
whilst me and those powers that be, rake creeps into heaps
freewheeling in speech
but never sleep, that for the weak
unless you underneath
in which case I beat bodies, leave em hobbling and soggy

absorb from the roots and then shoot
eat all the fruit
lax sapien stick knowledge in skull which snake brew

oh how i grew
in thorns wine and spew
learn debate plato seven chakras bit snacks this cold mute

yickety yack
hack prezs bank
throw a few phrases then reassemble attack
volcano ebola over whack tongues new track
keep it here keep it now
keep it hymnal and holy in sound
keep that torch lit til baccanal found
I wandered town to town
naked unbound, still tripping on facts
stood straight ape
mistaken for grace a disgusting abstract

I lie down

4:30AM

tonight went to go see the sugarhill gang, didnt like it though, seemed like it was middle age digging at the grave lot going through the motions making money from dead moments
imagine having never grow above something which made you famous in the 80s, imagine vanilla ice sitting at home a legitimate and caring artist but only known for one song
imagine how long those nights mut be, imagine how long and lonely are the one timers, knowing that theyre better than their lime light says.
because respect lost is defeat, you cant crawl back to strong and stable
nah that scars your fable, chris brown will forever be known for violence
what seems may be for now, but what could be should never be shadowed by its cloud
we respect it in our musicians and artists
i cant conceal a fate but i can change my ways and thats important in allowing growth
the ability to be wrong and move on, to change song
forever shedding effects in time and sentience
back to normal static relevance
embibed in the hive mind like resonance, shifting atwist beneath the crowds
a one type billionath of matter in a mind
we aint stopped that feet first ape
no rest for the wicked
for freedom we chase
ran right by god
didnt see him in the twisting turner blinker of a mirror, havent seen him around here
walked upright and straight into error

but i see him every now and then, in a day with too much coincidence or lining enjoyments lingering glare
i sense a certain beauty intransient in here
unexplainable, maybe self confidence in perfect objectivity, a pure state of stillness with the ocean

Ways Of Seeing (CHU BabMag Article)

Finally got round to picking up the new issue of Babmag for which I wrote an article on midlands 3D graffiti specialist CHU.

Here's the full piece.

Ways Of Seeing
The Work of Chu
by Murdok

“the relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight” - John Berger

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.” - William Blake

“Teenager leaves spectacles on floor of San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art as a prank, leading some to think they were an exhibit” - The Guardian, 2016.

Pareidolia, the name given to the way the brain will interpret and find patterns in shapes where there are none presents us with an interesting view into our imagination when looked at through the lens of art & creativity. If these simple instances of mental trickery made in moments of fright or fancy can construct worlds that simply are not there then what does it mean for our wider engagement with reality? What have we built that does not exist? Or more excitingly...what perhaps, are we missing?

Born in 1971 in Blakenall, Walsall Chu is an artist of multidisciplinary interest whose practice incorporates graffiti, world record breaking mural attempts, print, installation, video game design and a large role in the digital 3D rendering world. As he puts it though, there is a common theme of giving the viewer “more validity…..a super-human power” running throughout his work, whatever medium it is executed in there is a paramount interest in breaking down barriers through the introduction of the spectator to, and immersion of them in any number of different alternate realities.

Having just passed into his 34^th year as a graffiti artist and with 20 of those spent organising events his client base mirrors this lifetime of dedication with such companies as Coca-Cola, Virgin Trains (alongside Jamie Hewlett), Glastonbury Festival (numerous times), Nintendo, Digital Arts Magazine and even Banksy (who hired him as a print and event consultant) all seeking out his talents over the years.

To encounter Chu’s cross platform work is to have a glimpse into worlds beyond our own, beyond the realm of pure 2D representation and dipped into fantasy. As a self-confessed video game addict and having enjoyed employment with Walsalls leading games developers early in his career Chu is well versed in the creation of separate spaces that both mentally and physically engage users in their experience. For his ‘Cubic Experiment’ project Chu constructed an enclosed, decorated cube that upon entering would create an all around artistic experience when viewed from a single point in its centre. Disorientating, even for himself (Chu found it hard to distinguish between wall, floor and ceiling during the process) the piece sought to merge his fascination with the material capabilities of illustration and the immersion of virtual spaces.

Bringing the possibilities of the virtual realm to the street has meant that Chu has explored and experimented (sometimes on a huge scale) with ideas of 3D graffiti for a long time, whereas traditional Wildstyle graffiti feigns affiliation with projection from a surface its primary focus remains the distortion of letters, not of space, which ultimately means any environment created is understood as being linked to that surface and unfortunately retracts any promise of proper absorption into it. Chu understands something deeper though, that when a graffiti artist builds their name and style they are building a world – this being what we value outside of technical precision, the ideas graffiti artists (and wider artists as well obviously) communicate through their work. The best artists are the ones that make us see in the world a different, undiscovered place and in the case of Chu, whose work seeks to go beyond simple aesthetic fascination and into that pure meditative, hypnotic state that comes with a complete loss of self in contemplation, we find just that.

But whereas the virtual realm is limited to just that, virtual reality, Chu’s work in its use of the confrontational methods of graffiti and mural art forces us to examine and explore these ideas through sheer accidental exposure alone. These ‘Anamorphic Projections’ whilst meaningless from one view are reconstituted through the use of a specific standpoint or device and are a sublimely powerful act when mixed with the forceful space taking that graffiti employs. The everyday pedestrian can find themselves transported into a different world by simply being in the right place at the right time, they are a launch pad to alternate ways of seeing and just like Pareidolia work their magic suddenly – their absorption impossible to ignore.

Whilst the most illustrative and characterful depiction of these merged interests is most exactly given in the record-breaking mural attempt at ‘Hole In The Wall’ in Walsall town centre in which Chu single handedly painted a 40x95ft anamorphic projection mural over 42 days, the most precise and stunning experiment with these ideas is his black and white geometric work. Whereas the variation of subject matter (characters, letters, background) in traditional graffiti offer a chance to break up a surface – the consistency of line and colour in these monochromatic works do not give us that chance. Employing these devices of optical illusion for projects such as See No Evil and Room K in Bristol as well as the simply astounding “largest ever freehand 3D graffiti illusion” for City Of Colours mean the possibilities of graffiti and street art have been taken to a new level, especially when they’re painted without projectors, ladders or measuring devices – as Chu is prone to doing.

In Chu we have a master of alternative realities, a connoisseur of the understanding that art can be more than simple posturing. Together with the subtle political humour that creeps through the titles and ideas of much of his work we are shown an artist adept at getting to the crux of our experience and forcing us to confront how we perceive, engage and construct it. He is an artist that takes us to the edge of our reality, and demands we jump.  

In The Fields The Bodies Burning.

The flickering flames drowned over the screaming of some names as I confronted the kid who was building that huge fucking pyre in the graveyard in stoke
I smelt a grim stench recognisable as death
we sat down against the stone, shared a can or two of worms, spilt some cider on our clothes whilst we watched the orange glow slowly engulf their bones
he said he’d heard about those political scandals, read the papers knew his angles decided side with all the vandals against the digging at the heart by those above
in one hand his knuckles white as tight he gripped some gasoline,
but put it down when he had to drag more bodies to the heap,
mps, celebrities – he didn’t differentiate between
all was equal in that primal light
all was equal beneath soil and starry sky
at home in silence decided to solve matters without debate
scythe and weigh all the evils that these money men create
the panama papers, mps expenses, david Cameron fucking a pig
now he tied a lot of knots, ignored a lot of groans, over the cackling of a fire focused instead on his seething, gritted teeth tight form of hope.
determined to make a charcoaled and heaving mass, towering crumbling carbon ash and black –
rolled someones history, someones personality in his fingertips then…*blow*… blew it back
a crooked type of augustus
building an empire from several degrees
a blistering type of justice

the cloven hooves are back again
I hear them clicking on the rooves of all my kin
don’t let them in
don’t let them in

he barely moved or muttered further after that,
kept eyes fixated on that glowing burnt inferno
stoked and poked at any murmurs til they ceased.
that danse mcabre dug no hole in which to shovel that fall of rome, just slowly paced around his creation, cremated
come tomorrows dewy dawn
would set out, pile more flesh in mounds

our progress a slow descent, an ape bipedal made
still flings his shit around afraid
against that end of light afraid
we lurch and shriek in shame

some was me, most was them – lost a youth now a melancholy of older man. Leonard Cohen died and is Trump is president.
All was me, all was you, all was them

the cloven hooves are back again
I hear them clicking on the rooves of all my kin
don’t let them in
don’t let them in

Away

You were the most glorious of fucks

The most sublime of cunts

I was everywhere with you

A giant oozing wound

I clocked them from time
thought it best to keep walking
keep talking
because that’s a couple o’youths right there searching for their prime
at 3:45 on a saturday night
unsure of to how release it
except on random people in parks at night

couple hoods covered
couple tall ones

id clocked them from time
guess they had too
7 stalking meaning in the lamplight of a covered moon

but ive no doubt they wouldve done it
sacrificial cuttings and sudden plummet
the harvest sow of progression yields a lone summit 

NBD

I shuddered
how many mothers had I met 
how much baited breath had they kept 

Summer time and the living was simple 
back when those doors opened 
not anymore though, not since the industry left 
Maybe thats what caught my eye, a fleeting horizon escaping the sight 
A desperate daughter of communal hype 
In anxious sad searching for prisons of pride 

Freedom, cut me loose
Freedom, freedom, where are you? 

I still don’t understand the plight 

Long Grass

I touched my fingers together and sat back against the wooden divider
it seperated me from the vehicles howling home

They were sticky with paint, the brown had dripped all over them
From a window I was a madman dancing around
I was a pervert united in song
I was a chatterbox roaming the grounds

Plants I used to break when I was a kid
Weeds I used to snap, nestled deeply in my palms
it was a far corner of the sports field
Or our farm

Nike Airmax

The howling home

Still decades later I get it
"you're him aren't you, you were in that band"
"that was a long time ago now"
"you know my sister don't you"
"not really"

Now some people who had fame but didn't realise the extent of it,
1 became a tattooist
2 I havent seen in years

And Kieran tried to kill himself

Kieran tried to kill himself.

What happened?