Abstract

ABSTRACT THE Canvas for cardiff STREET ART

oner signs Britain’s oldest graffiti store

Phil morgan INTERVIEW WITH CARDIFF STAR

Artist Showcase snapshot of the local talent

Art oR atrocity?

The public have their say

#1 Launch issue

Editorial

C

ardiff’s street art scene is thriving. From the commissioned urban masterpieces in the city centre to the colourful murals splattered on the empty walls of Roath, the city provides an ever changing exhibition of artwork, bringing to life an already lively capital.

Phil Morgan Original Artwork

Abstract is a magazine born out of admiration for the street art in Cardiff. Through delivering interviews with local artists and talking to those at the heart of the scene, we want to showcase the very best of the Cardiff “graff” and paint a picture of how 1 - Shwmae! the art form has been embraced by the city.

2 - Local Talent: Artists Showcase We hope to inform, inspire and encourage our readership to 3 - 19 Years in UK’s oldest open their eyes to the gallery around them. We do not intend to “graff” shop coerce, but to educate – bring a little light to a subject often left 5 - Phil Morgan pops by for in the dark. + friends and fame Q&A 6 - Public or Passion : Art or Atrocity?

CONTENTS

EMILY OWEN

Jessie ann Lewis

Age: 22 Hometown: Cardiff Art Interests: Expressionistic and Pre-Raphaelite Art Places to visit: Tate Modern & Saatchi Gallery, London Local hotspot: Shakespeare St.

Age: 21 Hometown: Carmarthen Art Interests: Photography and Graphic Design Places to visit: The Boiler House, Cardiff Local hotspot: Lowther Rd.

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JONATHAN HARRIES Age: 21 Hometown: Lampeter Art Interests: Post Impressionist Art Places to visit: National Museum, Cardiff Local hotspot: Northcote Ln.

ANNA MORGAN Age: 23 Hometown: Llandrindod Wells Art Interests: Sculpture and Textiles Places to Visit: The Ikon Gallery, Birmingham Local Hotspot: City Rd.

PROFILES

Artist Showcase A snapshot of cardiff's local talent

Rmer

MOLLY SPICER Molly Spicer is an aspiring street artist with a huge love for Cardiff’s scene. She is in the process of organising her first mural in the city. Check out her artwork on Abstract ’s back cover and pull-out poster.

Rmer, aka.

Bradley Woo ds, is a local graffi ti/ aerosol artist and illustrator. In the mid 80s, aged 11, Rmer caught sight of his first gr affiti piece and kn ew instinctively that it was his calling . On 6 December 2015, his new piec e (left) was unveiled on the side of C lwb Ifor Bach.

TLwPC

Beth and Trin set up The Ladderless Window Painting Co. after finishing university. Recent projects include painting the front of Gwdihw and the Uganda mural on Lowther Road with fellow street artist, Dan Green (see below).

DAN GREEN

Dan Green fell in love with photography at 15. His most poignant undertaking was the Safe Found ation Project”, where he travelled to Uganda with the charity to document their clay oven project. He brought his photographs back to Cardiff ’s Lowth er Road for 2015’s Made in Roath festival.

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Oner Signs Store on Church Street, Cardiff

19 Years of Graff

Oner Signs talk graffiti, THEIR CARDIFF HISTORY, and rooftop workshops

S

Da

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v

nes e jo

omeone once said, “Do what you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life”. If this is the case, then the guys at Oner Signs haven’t worked a single day since the UK’s first graffiti shop opened 19 years ago.

Tucked away on the second floor of a building on Church Street, Oner Signs opened in 1996. The store provides signage and

graphics, along with supplies which cater to Cardiff’s street art scene.

Fast forward to 2015 and Oner’s clientele has expanded across Europe, whilst the store continues to provide for those artists closer to home.

“Oner Signs started off as a sign shop with some ‘graff’ products for local artists.

It’s progressed from holding just a few tins of paint to a couple of thousand tins,” Dave Jones, who works at

Oner Signs, tells Abstract.

“It’s a hobby all of us had as kids and it’s just progressed from there really.”

love FOR the “graff”

A feeling of nostalgia can definitely be felt throughout the store. Aerosol cans of spray paint and old-school murals line the walls, completely juxtaposed with the table of Apple iMacs at the far end where graphic designer, Scott Lewis, is at work designing graphics for a local business.

FEATURE

Giving Back

In fact, they regularly work alongside Cardiff Council and the local police force to organise legal wall paintings and graffiti workshops across the city - something which stemmed from a series of workshops that Oner Signs used to host on a rooftop at the back of the store.

“We know a lot of the local street artists. We all used to skateboard together when we were back at school,” Scott reflects. “Our love of art and graffiti started when we were about 16-years-old and now many of us make a living out of it.”

“

street art in cardiff has become

socially accepted.”

“We used to have access to a big rooftop at the back of the building,” Dave explains.

“There was a huge wall there – about 60 feet wide and 15 feet tall – and we would take groups of kids out and teach them to paint.

The workshops were two hours long and open to everyone. “We even had a headmaster coming along to paint the wall,” Dave says with a laugh. “He came on his own and was put in a workshop with a group of five and six year olds!”

Changing times

When the lads at Oner Signs started spraying walls back in the early 1980s, street art was

seen as an act of vandalism – a rebellion against society.

Now though, it seems Cardiff as a city has embraced it.

“People are actually given paint and tools by councils and authorities to create street art nowadays, which would never have happened when we started painting all those years ago,” says Scott.

“Street art in Cardiff has become socially accepted.

Generations have changed and people are warming to it.

It’s a part of society.” +

FAREWELL TO THE abacus The Abacus – Cardiff’s creative space for artists – will sadly be closing this month. To celebrate its fleeting, but lively life, the creators behind the Abacus are throwing one final shindig on 18 December.

During its tenure in the local community the Abacus has hosted many innovative events to encourage street art. This will be the last opportunity to see their exciting exhibits as they bid farewell.

The Abacus will close its doors next month

It’s this admiration and appreciation for local street art that has shaped Oner Signs into the UK’s biggest provider of graffiti products. Whether it’s through designing signs for Cardiff-based businesses or shipping out spray paints to magazine companies in Milan, Oner Signs is keen to give back to the scene.

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INTERVIEW

Phil Morgan Local artist Looks Back

L

ocal artist, Phil Morgan, burst onto Cardiff’s street art scene six years go whilst designing skateboard graphics for a friend.

Today his art work can be found all over the world. Abstract caught up with him after his recent trip to LA to talk inspiration, artwork and his plans for 2016.

Original Phil Morgan Artwork Provided

Where did it all start?

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I have loved drawing for as long as I can remember. I started creating work properly six years ago when I was designing skateboard graphics for my friend’s skateboard company, Crayon Skateboards.

Since then I have had the pleasure of working with a whole bunch of clients, such as The Washington Post, Urban Outfitters, Giff Gaff Mobile and Coca Cola.

What inspires you?

I take inspiration from everyday things. My family and friends, watching television, drinking beer, reading a good book and getting out in nature. I like to keep a

notebook with me at all times so I don’t forget an idea I might have for a future doodle.

Any standout pieces?

I recently went to LA for a group art show with some friends from Australia. It was a blast to finally meet with the creatives I have been friends with for the past few years. I also released my first publication with the good folks at the Secret Headquarters.

Working on a piece for the 100 Years of the contour bottle for Coca- Cola (see right) was another high point and I was honoured to have been asked to take part.

What’s next?

At the moment I am working on my next publication called I Got Beefs with a good friend of mine from Newport. I am also taking part in a Monty Python themed group art exhibition in Leeds next March and a Charlie Brown themed group art exhibition in LA. I like to be as busy as I can for most of the year. +

street art in worldwide fashion Alexander McQueen’s model posed in front of two robotic arms on a revolving platform in 1999. The auditorium fell silent as a model in a white dress was haphazardly spray painted. It is an iconic fashion moment.

Dame Vivenne Westwood Dame Vivienne Westwood, fashion house matriarch, incorporates pieces depicting graffiti into every collection.

Street art conveys a message and so does Westwood, using fashion as a major means.

Designers are often too inspired by street art. Currently fashion house Moschino are being sued by street artist Joseph Tierny aka. Rime, who accuses the company of using his designs without permission throughout their fall 2015 collection.+

Opinion

Art or Atrocity?

Has the country warmed to the once criminal art form??

A

Radical robot: flickr cc

and thousands of murals later, often commission street art there is a growing leniency murals to add colour to drab, towards it. uninspiring architecture.

But only with the owner’s Like all art, street art has permission can an artist evolved over time. The tools paint on someone else’s wall.

Made popular as an art form are now more sophisticated by pioneers such as Banksy, and the messages more Here the line street art has polarised opinion profound. Once branded as between on a global scale. It can be spray-can wielding thugs, crime seen as artistic expression by modern street artists now have and art some, but for others, it is a integrity in society. can be glorified means of vandalism. drawn: In fact, Cardiff Council has paint as Graffiti was born as a way of embraced Banksy inspired vandalism communication for young New art – loosening the law and is often used Yorkers in the 1970s. Met with providing legal walls to give to mark territory, disgust and outrage, it later freedom to those who use when art is used to better it. became outlawed. 40 years on the city as a canvas. They What do the locals think? +

18% Decrease in graffiti vandalimsm since 2014

Office for National Statistics

fter decades of cool detachment, is the country slowly warming from its once icy interpretation of street art as CRIME?

“IS STREET ART VANDALISM?"

Abby Burman, 20, Student, Newport “It depends. Pictures where people are expressing themselves are amazing, whereas gang logos are vandalism.”

Alex Moscovici, 21, Student, London “It’s good if it’s for the purpose of art, but if it’s just to be a hooligan then I don’t approve.”

Neil Owen, 55, Lecturer, Bangor “No. I think it’s an expression – it gives local buildings personality and positivity.”

Karen Clinton, 60, Secretary, Kent “Yes, it’s vandalism and breaking the law. It just screams disorder.”+

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Thank you to cover artist molly spicer

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