Invurt’s good mate Unwell Bunny has an exciting new show called ‘Subtuition’ opening in a couple of days in PARIS of all places – so what better time to catch up with the man himself for a chat! (Apologies mate for not posting this sooner).

I remember meeting Ed in late 2012 when he came home to “visit” after spending years in Europe – haha – so much for a visit – he’s still here and as much a part of Melbourne as he ever was, we hope he sticks around too ;)

Tell us about your background and how you got into street art?

My background is in graffiti, I’m from Adelaide in Australia and grew up with graffiti, back then things were very different and the art was just one part of the culture. A lot of illegal stuff was also a part of it, and as the years went on I realised I was very much in it for the art and the expression. Four years after starting graffiti I moved to Melbourne, and by 2003-4 had met some influential people doing interesting things, Rone and Reka from Melbourne and Dolk from Norway were all in my year level at Uni, and they were already doing their thing by that stage, and I was interested. We had another friend Nick, who sadly is no longer with us, and we all hung out at time and drew. Around this time Ha Ha was a massive influence on the stencil art boom that was happening in Melbourne, and seeing his street bombings was exceptionally inspiring. I started practicing street art around 2003-2004, sort of regenerating my passion for graffiti in a different way, I never really cut a stencil, but I delved into paste up art. By 2005 I was showing my street& art in galleries and having successful group shows, in 2006 I got back into graffiti when I met Snuf, and my street work became a hybrid of both graffiti and street art, which I believe it still is to this day.

I know your be spent lots of time and met some amazing people and been part of some great collaborations – tell us about some of these adventures and people you’ve met?

I have met some great artists along the way in the early days it was Rone, Meggs and Reka, Ghouls, Dolk then a bit later on D*Face, Mysterious Al (one of my best mates), Tilt, Ms Van, The London Police all whom I spent time with when I was travelling and living in Europe in 2012. ELK is also one of my best mates, and I spend quite a bit of time with him in Sydney pretty regularly. In terms of collaborations, these have always happened organically, travelling I collaborated with Knraf and Fresh Max in Vienna, this was so spontaneous and fun, those guys are pros at the collaboration and spontaneity game.

Your style, pop art esque mash ups. What’s it all about?

Its about the time that we live in. Its about always being switched on, and being bombarded with different images by the media and advertising and mass popular culture landscape. Its about subconscious collection and manipulation of thinking, essentially pollution of the mind. But its also about re interpretation, intuition and re creation. Re formatting and individual expression, its new images made from old images. Its what you’ve seen before, as a completely new idea.

You have an extensive history w the Melbourne street art scene being one of the original artists.. Tell us about that time, how’s it different today? What do you miss? What don’t you like about today?

2003-2004 was very different, everything was new and naive and challenging. No body had any idea what they were doing, they just liked doing it. It is different now, there is a far greater sense of what it can lead to, there is a far greater awareness of a global culture, and there is more interest in it from the main stream. All of that being said, it is still a great scene, Melbourne probably does still have one of the best scenes in the world and Melbourne probably still is the street art capital of Australia.

Tell us about your upcoming show “Subtuition” in Paris, how did this come about? What’s the show all about?

I spent 2012 in Europe, and painted quite a bit over there, the gallery had been following my work for awhile, that’s how these things sometime come about, and they felt I was a good fit for them. They offered to represent me. Eight months later the work is all done and I’m ready to head back over to Europe for a little residency.

Unwell Bunny Documentary Trailer from Cale Rodriguez on Vimeo.

What are you gonna do when you get to Paris? Do you have any connections and do you have any collaborations planned?

I do know some people in Paris, and have some others coming from Amsterdam and Germany and London, and will likely do some free flowing collaborations when I get the chance. But there is a bit of a schedule leading up to the show and a bit of hard work to put in before I switch into any sort of spray cation mode. I am very much looking forward to a little vacation at the end of it though.

What’s next for Unwell Bunny in 2015?

Tentitive plans for Hong Kong later in the year and then Miami and New York at the end of the year for some other stuff. It all seems like full steam ahead at this stage, but I’ll just get this one out of the way first.

We wish we could be there man! Good luck with the show and Big ups!
Who: Unwell Bunny.
What: Subtuition.
When: Opens 9th April 7-10pm.
Where: Galerie Lacroix. 19 rue Lesage, Paris.

Facebook event page here.