Going through our daily blogs, we spotted the flyer for the great group exhibition that is “Free Brains” at SJS Gallery, and, amongst the talent listed, we noticed that one of our favourites, Adnate, was also contributing a piece to the show.

So we figured, what better opportunity to ask a few questions, and delve into the mind behind some truly cool work?

First and foremost – how did you first get involved with painting, and what is the fundamental reason you are still doing it to this day?

My first memory of graff was when I was about 7 years old. My brother used to make wildstyle sketches and I would pretend they were mazes. I didn’t grow up on a train line, so it wasn’t till I was about 13 that I started traveling round Melbourne and I was exposed to lines like Hurstbridge. Seeing these pieces opened up a whole new world to me, I saw what was possible with paint and ambition. WCA Crew was definitely the highlight… there productions, colours, styles, letter structure… all I wanted to do was to be able to paint like those guys.

There’s something really special about painting outdoors on a large scale. I love the feeling of being out, arriving at a wall and leaving 10 seconds, or ten days later, legal or illegal, and creating something that wasnt there earlier. I know graffiti is a selfish act, but that’s what I do, and have done, theres always going to be someone that hates what you do simply because they don’t understand it.

Beyond street art and artists, where else do you find you derive your inspiration from? In a lot of your pieces, you use a lot of natural-meets-urban themes, how does this fit in with those points of inspiration?

My first inspiration for my graffiti style is definitely HR Geiger. I was completely obsessed with the movie “Aliens” as a little kid and as I got older I realized that my letters, structure, style and composition were all derived and influenced by the shapes of the “Aliens”.

These days my gallery work is very much about pushing the boundaries between graffiti and fine art. By doing this, I might paint a flower, or a figure juxtaposed against heavy drips from a tag or a raw murky texture, similar to what you would find on the street. I love the idea of having two different forms clashing. It creates heavy contrast in the work and the result is a high impact of styles, textures and colours.

Street art, fine art, these days the gap is so narrowed that it may as well not exist – how have you found the progression over the years in terms of acceptance of the style of work that you are involved with by the wider public?

Street art, Fine Art, Urban Art, Graffiti Art, Pop Art, Surrealist Art, can now be seen hanging next to each other in museums around the world. It seems as if you look at the history of it, especially the 80’s, there always seems to be a boom every decade or two, when the art worlds jump in and buy it up.

Stenciling and Banksy have definitely had a huge impact on the acceptance of graffiti and street art – but I feel this hype round Banksy is just too much. So many times I’d be painting a legal on the street, or I might even mention to someone that I’m a graffiti artist, I would get someone telling me about how amazing he is, how he is the most incredible artist and that he is the best and only street artist worth knowing about.

The thing I hate the most is the public don’t want to accept that Banksy would not exist if it were not for tags, if it were not for the endless amount of trains smashed, paneled and burnt by artists that the public have always hated. Even in Melbourne, it seems that if you decide to get into street art and begin making stencils then your gallery or newspaper worthy in just a few months. I’ve never seen Puzle, or Duel, or many other old school graffiti artists, get a quarter of the amount of recognition that stencil artists get here in Melbourne and these guys have risked a hell of a lot to get there work out there.

Your previous work using sculptural elements,  and extruding your designs out into the 3D space, looks fantastic – is this still an avenue that you are exploring and where else do you think you can take that form of work?

I’ve always been amazed by realism, 3d realism, and how some graffiti artists like Daim and Brusk make there letters look as if they are exploding sculptures. I think it’s incredible that artists can make an image look like a photo just by using paint.

I did a sculpture of an “ADE” piece in 2008, which took me about a hundred hours. There have been a few other artists that have done them before (and still are) – in particular Duel from Melbourne and Peeta from Italy. These artists and myself make sculptures based on how they paint their letters. For my Solo Exhibition, “Demand Attention”, I took it even further and used the most powerful symbol know to mankind, the Crucifix. I used my aggressive wild style and my 3d woodwork to create a 2m high sculpture. The result was very powerful and it took me about six months.

I’m actually in the process of going back to that sculpture and making it even more detailed and bigger. I want it to be even more intense, I want it to feel dangerous.

Back in April, you did some live painting work at HiFi bar for a gig they had there – is this something that you enjoyed? How did it come about, and is live painting something you’re interested in doing more of?

I got invited by the “Fat Kids” as a follow up to my exhibition. It was good fun, I had about 1,000 people watch me, drank half a slab and was on stage for about 4 hours under intense bright lights. So I was absolutely fucked by the end.

I’ve done live painting before at events, like Sketch City, and its fun. Its not something that I will focus on, but I will never turn it down if someone invites me. It’s a different way to work too, as it’s more about the progression of your work than the final outcome.

Beyond painting and the 3D work, you’ve also dabbled in toys, sneakers and a variety of other formats – do these forms still keep you interested and are there other variations of ideas that you are working on?

Its always good to try new things, there’s an old saying that “a good artist is good at all crafts”. I think that’s true, I’ve seen amazing fine artists pick up a spray can for the first time and paint photo realism, have amazing can control and layer techniques.  Its important to explore different mediums, it will only benefit you, its just good to explore as much as possible.

That’s something that I really wish I had more time for, to explore different styles – different mediums. No one could ever honestly say that they have done “everything they could” or ever say “I did the best I could”, because you can always try harder and then, there’s another saying, “Art is never finished, only abandoned”.

So you just have to continue the exploration, continue working, and I think that’s the best recipe for success in life…

How was the reception to your solo show, Demand Attention, that you had at No Vacancy earlier this year?

The launch was massive… about 500 people came and went, 25 slabs of Becks were drunk in about an hour and I sold most of my work. To be honest I really wasn’t expecting to have such a good opening for a first solo show – but I had awesome support from Don’t Ban The Can. They got me heaps of press, I was in a few newspapers and big radio shows.

Speaking of Dont Ban The Can, you’ve been involved with that for a while, how do you think the message has progressed, and do you believe that the campaign has had the intended effect that those throwing their weight behind it have hoped?

Well, we’re not lawyers, and we’re definitely not politicians, and the aim for Don’t Ban The Can was to not put our energy into getting the laws overruled. That would have been extremely hard and very costly in legal fees. The aim was to have a voice, to show to the public that Graffiti isn’t about “senseless vandalism”. DBTC was about putting a positive message out there for graffiti and that we do not deserve to be put in the same bag as murderers and rapists. I remember an article in the Herald Sun years ago making crazy statements including: “If a female is to join a graffiti crew, then she has to be raped by all the members before she is accepted.”

In the end, the first DBTC was a success and it has continued to be, we have helped to change the overall views of many people out there – I think that’s very important for this art form to survive.

You’ve done a few works in some group shows since your solo exhibition, what’s the next big project for you – and do you have anything else planned for the rest of this year, beyond the piece you have in Free Brains?

Well, next year I’ve booked in solo exhibitions for both Berlin and Barcelona… so I’ve got a lot of work to do… it’ll be the second time I’ve exhibited in Europe, but it’s going to be much bigger this time round as I’ve got some awesome people in the scene working over there. I cant talk much about it though, as a lot of it still up in the air … and there’s also the possibility I might exhibit in London or Paris too.

There are a lot of things I’m working on here in Melbourne as well that haven’t been announced, so definitely keep your eye out and you’ll know!

You can check out Adnates blog here to keep up with his work. He also has a piece, along with some other fellow Awol’ers, in the group exhibition Free Brains at SJS Gallery, along with a bunch of other talented artists.