Living in London: Diary #13

Yoooo!

What a whirlwind. Last week MTV skyped me and said I won the contest. I skyped with a mentor called Kyle Platts and I realised I had no idea how to do this. Haha. So I ran to the digital print studio at CSM to find a way to print Miles on big wallpaper paper. I spent a day in the library trying to get a high quality render and an idea of the proportions. I spent my Sat night at the art shop in Angel where a really friendly dude gave me about 20 pound discount, only to realise in the chicken shop later that I wasnt allowed to use spraypaint for the job due to health and safety. The day after I spend the whole day concentrating on possible problems I might run into. Then, Monday happened. 2 days, 8-11 hours of concentration, not making any mistakes, perhaps I had a break of 15 minute per day in total. Absolutely MENTAL. I went to the opening party and felt kinda proud. I fucking did it.

I sneaked Miles into MTV.

My friend said that it was strange that I was worried that I didnt get in and I said, man, I broke so many rules and I still dont know why they picked me. I feel SO CHEEKY!!!!!

• The contest is for young people between 18-26. I literally turned 27 the week after submission.
• The contest is for people living in London. I moved to London 8 weeks ago.
• The contest is for people who are into Illustration, painting and large scale work - like people who are studying or graduating in these subjects. I do literally NONE of those, my main subject is performance art. Not even sculpture.... PERFORMANCE! Literally I was the only one that had never done anything like this before.
• They had turned down people who did spraypainting, and I rocked up saying that I had to spraypaint some parts and that it would take half an hour. After some discussion and some begging they had made way for me to spraypaint in the courtyard. I ended up spraypainting EVERYTHING for over 16 hours...
• All painters were put in a small room to paint together. Because I broke the rules with spraypainting I spent 2 days hanging out with the MTV crew as if I had my own little studio... Even bumped my own music...

It made me just realise how ODD it is that I was selected and how lucky I am. And cheeky. Me and my big mouth.

But the thing that made me proud of my work is that I sneaked in Miles. I feel like a part of me is emulated in this picture of him that I collaged. Hes alive!!!

Here I am talking to Butler.

Crazy few days. So crazy. I wish I had like half a day more. But its cool. Its done and dusted now. On to the next -- I am trying to reorientate my brain. What is this 2D really to me anyway? I havent drawn so much as I had in the last 2 weeks. Its like the universe is trying to tell me I should draw. But in the meantime I am seeing it as a side thing. Though my enthousiasm is coming back.

I feel like who I was when I was 16 is totally returning. Spraypainting, drawing, listening to rap music, fantasizing, dancing, fashion, feeling and looking cool. When I went to uni and Australia and Cambodia I felt like I changed so much - I gave up all of those and got (middle) classism, marketing, money, office carreer, international politics and a global view in return. Many of these experiences influence my work as a performance artist in the public space. And I am slowly combining those two. So ironic - I have come back to MTV as a company as MTV inspired my entire childhood on every level - music, music videos, art, youth culture, subculture, the Cool. I literally studied it in University.

I cant describe all of these feelings. So Ill just close off with Giggs/Danaeo.