Walking down the Artery (also known as the Dog Leg Tunnel) at Cockatoo Islands Outpost Project, you are taken aback by the colours, forms and imagery from the imaginations of some of Australias top street artists – music plays softly to various pieces within the tunnel, and the rough walls serve as a backdrop to some incredible feats of painted board.

James Jirat Patradoon is, first and foremost, an illustrator – however in recent years he has also started made his mark on the Sydney street art scene with several great murals. Out of the many pieces  down in those depths of the Artery, Patradoons most definitely caught our eye. Even given his self admission that transforming his intricately detailed works to the larger scale that street art entails can cause headaches, when we passed by his work underneath the Cockatoo Island cliff face, we didn’t notice even the slightest hint of this struggle in his work. Flowing lines, beautiful cut back shading and stark, gorgeous slashed limb colour made his piece feel radiantly effortless – completely in opposition to the amount of time and painstaking hours he puts into the larger work

Drawing on themes such as identity, legend, machismo and popular cultured imagery, this is an individual who is carving out his own slice of artistic freedom by cultivating a unique style that has massive appeal. Crossing between these worlds, from the low brow to brand orientated design, is no simple feat – and yet, the more of his work that we see, the more it becomes apparent that this is an artist who has actually found his stride between these two worlds  …

Tell us about how you started drawing – when you were younger, did you always think that this would be a path you took in life, or did it always seem a little nebulous in ambition?

I never realised illustration or art was a job when I was younger, even right now it borders on what would be considered a ‘real job’. Growing up, people were telling me to become a graphic designer or an architect or something, I just kind of ignored all that. I have my sense of naivety to thank for where I am, I really don’t have any idea what I’m doing, my parents don’t even know what the hell I do. All I remember is people telling me NOT to do what I’m currently doing.

Your work has a pretty “in your face” attitude about it – which is one of its most striking characteristics, and it crosses over a whole wide range of popular culture references and themes. When you are putting together a piece, what form of reference materials do you find yourself often researching, or reflecting upon?

It depends, I like to move through a lot of references at once. When I was younger I’d watch like three movies a night or something, I like being overloaded with imagery. I trawl tumblr and ffffound for hours every day. References I’ve been attracted to recently are anything that remind me of cosmic horror, or parallel worlds.

I want to know what it looks and feels like to be a teenager living in Eternia (where He-Man is from) with all this shit going on and you’re just trying to figure your life out and Skeletor and Hordak are bombing the shit out of the place and all the mountains are pink.

Gangsters, bike gangs, masked figures – is the machismo aspect of your work a reflection of external influences and commentary, or is it an emotive nature that you find reflected in yourself? What is it about the various elements of stoicism and anonymity that engender a creative outlet for you?

For me what it all boils down to is that gap between the identity we’ve constructed for ourselves, and who we ‘really’ are. There is a lot of room for play in that, and despite what people think, it isn’t just something ‘superficial’ people do, everyone does it whether they’re aware of it or not. Gangsters, bikers, they’re just playful metaphors for the blurry line between life and legend.

I realised the other day that celebrities were humans, as in, they went to high school, caught buses, get food poisoning etc. We’re capable of living bigger lives, or at least that’s what we’re sold.

How has your use of mediums evolved over time? From hand drawn to digital, Wacom tablets  to painting on walls and brush – at the moment, do you favour one over others, and how does each different medium affect the image that you compose with its use?

I used my old sable brush the other day for the first time in years and I really missed it, but I don’t have time to be using brushes much anymore, it’s a shame. I only use a brush or pencil when the work needs to be ‘physical’, so for murals and paintings and things like that, I avoid it if I can, because it becomes a facsimile of something I’ve already drawn and resolved digitally anyway.

I experience art mostly through the internet, so it doesn’t matter much to me about the physical aspects of it. If feels like you start talking about how something was made when you have nothing to say about what the work is about, you know like “Jeez … your posca must be like … really good”. Everything I do starts its life digitally, whether it ends up as a painting or a drawing, it’s conception is entirely digital.

I took a while off to work on a solo show last year, and nothing sold at all, but the work became popular through the internet and I was getting good feedback from it months later from people overseas. I think that’s when I began realising the redundancy of the art object, and geography, in our current technological age.

Speaking of walls – tell us a bit about how you first started moving to the street work? What was your first piece and how does it hold up now? What is it about street art that draws you in?

I’m not going to lie, I’m probably the least ‘street art’ person on the island – I spend most of my artistic practice sitting behind a desk. The first wall I ever did was at the Oxford Art Factory – that killed me and I swore I’d never do one again, but then I did, and I’m still doing them now because I keep forgetting how much of a pain in the ass they are.

Street Art’s merit lies in its accessibility and its ability to engage in a spacial way. For instance when you see one of Beastman’s pieces they’re meant to be experienced in the space, they’re gargantuan and enveloping.

Similarly, with the Pastemodernism 3 show, you’re meant to see that stuff in person, because its sense of sublime lies in the fact that it goes beyond your peripheral vision – it’s installation, it’s awe.

You’ve done quite a lot of commercial illustrative work for a very wide variety of companies – how does this mesh in with your own artistic work, and what is the differentiation between the two, for you?

They started as the same thing, and then for a while they moved apart, where commercial work became just me drawing what the client wanted, and using my drawing skills to bring an idea to life. Now though, they’ve merged together again in a way where the aesthetic, or the ‘world’ that the characters and the imagery come from are the same.

I apply a lot of my concepts about identity and horror to commercial work, sometimes clients want that and those are the most fulfilling jobs, other times the feedback is always the same “It’s too scary, it’s too dark.” I don’t know what’s so scary about my work, they look like the freakin T-Birds, and I watched Grease when I was four and didn’t get scared.

What are some of the more interesting commissions you’ve worked on, and what are some of the worst?

I recently did something for Converse over in the States, and that was awesome because since I’ve moved into making clothes, they asked me to make a leather jacket for them. I don’t know how much I can say about it right now, but it was really fun, and they trusted me completely to just make something awesome.

The worst jobs are when someone has seen your work, know exactly what you do, and then micro-manage the shit out it “Make the finger go here” or “Make that arm in the distance as big as the arm in the foreground, what is perspective?” It kills projects and takes all the energy and fun out of it and it’s a terrible time for both parties involved.

Tell us a bit about your involvement in the upcoming Outpost Project? How did it all come about, and what will you be doing on the island?

Ambush asked me to be involved when I was doing the Project 5 stuff last year, it’s been a long time in the making and the scale of the exhibition reflects that. I did a piece for the Artery exhibition in the Dog Leg Tunnel and Arcade Screenprinting are also doing shirts from the artists, so I’m in that too. There’s a lot going on, it’s epic.

When I first saw what Kid Zoom was working on, I spent the ferry ride home re-thinking my life – that’s how epic the show is.

What do you believe the Outpost Project will help to bring to the Australiasian street art scene, and its advancement?

What Ambush have managed to do with Outpost Project is to create a cohesive cross section of Australian Street Art right now and a vision of it’s potential and where things could go from here. Making it so public, so big, and bringing EVERYONE on board will hopefully educate a lot of people about what’s been happening in the past few years, and hopefully get more people interested in the movement and it’s range.

It’s a huge step in the right direction. In the past, street artists have been relegated to small shows and murals here and there, this show will do everyone some justice.

What are your plans for after Outpost, and for 2012? What can we be expecting to see from James Jirat Patradoon next year, and into the future?

I just finished advertising school a few months ago and that’s given me a lot of ideas. I’m in a creative collective called Toby and Pete where I spend pretty much all my time. I’m working on a series of animated gif animation loops, and fashion/sculpture side project.

Ultimately, I want to make a video game – but I don’t know how to do that …

Check out James Jirat Patradoons website here, and his Facebook page here. For more information on the Outpost Project, check out our rough guide.