I first came across Putos down in Richmond a couple of years back – it was one of those “Ha!” moments, walking along and seeing a nicely lined blocky, spouting the artists moniker, way up above me. Knowing a little fragmentary Spanish, I couldn’t help but chuckle, and filed the name away in in the “interesting, gotta see what else he’s done” pile in the back of my (admittedly often overcrowded) mind.

When I next saw his work, I almost didn’t put two and two together as to it being the same guy that I’d seen way back when, but there it was – a big beast of a creature with the same fine lines and shading I’d seen earlier on, yet this time the beast was exemplary in its rendition. I was pretty damn eye catching. From that point on I was hooked, no longer was Putos’s name lodged in the back of my mind – it was at the forefront, and he swiftly became, in my eyes, one of those Melbourne artists who was, definitively, on my “fucking rad” list.

Putos most certainly has a style all his own – a culmination of years of infusing graffiti styles with modern pop cultural icons such as cartoons and anime, with a heavy dose of his own fantastical beastiary. I unashamedly devour every new piece from Putos, his work is just in that vein of “shit that does it” for me. His imagination touches on my own personal love of the weird and wonderful,  and his can skills are more than worthy of admiration.

Read on for a cool insight into the artist, and find out why it is we fucking love his work, in the interview below …

Anyways, tell us how you got your start with being creative – have you always been into doing art and creating stuff?

I’ve always had a love for drawing since an early age, inspired from cartoons and anime I would draw heaps of dinosaurs n monsters n stuff like that… I would be in the back of the class sketching and the teacher would be like “You’re in trouble young man!… but that’s a nice dinosaur …”

How about your earlier days doing graffiti – how did you first get involved, and how did you become involved in it all?

I was playing around with graf for a while tagging n stuff, but I gradually got more serious into it when I met Silk Roy at uni and we started painting together a lot. We pretty much taught ourselves how to do this and that through trial and error.

What are some of the earliest lessons you learnt when painting in walls, and do you still carry those lessons with you today? What did you once think was all-important, but no longer believe is relevant when getting your work up?

I think the main lesson for me was to always try new things. I was focused for the first few years of painting on getting my stuff clean and crisp, doing a lot of cut backs and minimizing over spray so my images would look like my ink drawings. But after a while I started to get a bit bored of that and started to change up one element of what I would be doing, whether it be variations in the subject matter, the shapes and lines, fill pattern etc., so I would still be in my comfort zone but I would be trying something new as well. Through this I’ve discovered many different effects and techniques that I wouldn’t have come across otherwise.

I also love to play the Mr. Squiggle game where you just draw some squiggles on a page and then try to turn it into an image… this helped change up my shapes and flow of the images, and so I could paint a dog ten times in a row and still have a different thing going in each one.

Gotta ask, where did you derive the tag Putos from? It has a whole swag of interesting slang behind it, if you google around … Haha

Yea, it’s a joke name that just kinda stuck. I wrote some other words before that and they all double up with other writers so I was like, ‘what’s a word that no one will be writing?’ and before I knew it I was writing this word all the time… I also liked the letters for my pieces back in the day, but now I dont really do pieces so yea, its just a funny name.. In Australia the word isn’t too common so it’s not a problem, but in LA there’s a huge Hispanic population and when I was living there the name caused quite a stir haha

Tell us a little about the evolution of your style, where have you derived fundamental inspiration from for your work, and where do you want to drive your style to in the future?

I try not to be one style and be flexible, but all my stuff ends up taking on this certain aesthetic somewhat. I’ve been focusing on my fading for the last year or two, and so now people associate that with my style, which is cool but I dont really want to be locked into and be known just for that.

Soon I plan to change my focus to something else and hopefully that will evolve my style even further, right now Im just searching for what that next focus will be.

What have been some of the more interesting and challenging spots, both environmental and architecturally, that you’ve painted?

Most large walls I do I find challenging in their own ways. The wall I did with Silk, Dvate, Bail Libre and Nektar along the tracks between Richmond n South Yarra was fun, there was a 3+ meter drop at the wall – so we had scaff, and 7 meter ladders, and still only could reach 3~4 meters on the wall. It got a bit hairy trying to get to the top of the wall …

The dragon I painted in Brunswick St backpackers was also fun, it took me half a day to do the head and took me over a week to do that body… I decided to do this triangle pattern on the belly side of the dragon and that took way longer than expected on a ladder.

Beyond that, you’ve painted in some interesting spots over time, I remember seeing your “Rampage” video you did with Dcypher some time back in LA – how did you find painting in the US, and what have been some if the most interesting places you’ve travelled to to paint?

I lived in LA for like just under a year, and that was awesome because I found myself chillin with CBS dudes and learned a lot painting with them and being around them. I owe a lot to those guys, they helped me with everything there from work, a place to stay, linking up with cats there etc. which made my stay there absolutely awesome.

Painting in France and at the Meeting of Styles 2010 in Perpignan was also great, I didn’t know any French and they had minimal English but we had a ball painting together.

There I was chillin with ODV crew, and they also took care of me when I was there and I am super grateful to those guys too. France has its own unique graf styles, and I love the aesthetic that they push there where it’s a nice fusion between illustration and graf, which is right up my alley.

Have you extended your work much into the gallery realm before? What kind of stuff do you enjoy doing away from the walls?

I haven’t done much in terms of exhibitions except for a few lil group shows here and there. But I will be doing the Seasons of Change exhibit in March, which will be my first semi solo thing (with Silk) which I’m looking forward to.

I sketch a lot in my spare time away from walls, so I’m doing a lot of that for the show at the moment.

What kind of painting projects do you have coming up in the future, and what kind of work do you dream of doing if there were absolutely no obstacles?

I would love to paint bigger and bigger walls. With no obstacles I would be painting the side of a skyscraper or something,

So what do you have planned for 2014? What can we see Putos doing this year?

More of everything. More walls and more exhibitions, more collaborations with other artists, I’m up for anything.

Check out a heap more from Putos at his website, as well as over at his Instagram – @putospaint!