Andrew Lamb

He goes by the pseudonym, Andrew Lamb and he’s responsible for bringing out the inner child in most of us. He does so by successfully vandalising street signs with ’80s superheroes such as Wonder Woman, Hulk and the Fantastic Four just to name a few. Lamb would print out the images of the heroes on a laser printer and then go around pasting them on signs that mostly read ‘Neighbourhood Watch’.

Andrew Lamb

His inspiration for these works of art was merely just an idea that sparked in his mind. During an interview with CBC News he said, ‘I walked by and thought those signs would be much better with a superhero up there.’

If that isn’t enough to get you feeling young again, you can now take comfort in dressing up as your favourite hero on any other day when you patrol your neighbourhood. Why? Because many other residents are doing it too. Check out this documentary about American locals dressing up as their favourite heroes and even creating their own.

Now go forth and prosper, and may the force be with you.

Who would win in a fight, the local SAPS or these artistic street signs? Comment your thoughts below or hit us up on twitter @onesmallseedSA.

Credits

Words: Matthew Alexander
Images: Andrew Lamb

Andrew Lamb

Andrew Lamb

Andrew Lamb

For more captivating street art on one small seed click here

A fascinatingly calm group of artists with their own distinctive styles, the artists have a grounded pride about them; this will be their first time exhibiting together. Dressed as effortlessly sophisticated as his work– in a crisp white shirt and black tie– Rayaan seems ready. Leigh next to him, lanky and tall with boyish charm shuffles impatiently in his seat beside Anwar, who projects the kind of wisdom that could only come from years of hard work. The most shy of the group, NardStar*, likes to let the work speak for her. Every artwork in the exhibition was done meticulously by each member of CORE, including the beautiful wooden frames they are cased in. A labour of love, each one of the works is for sale, however reluctant they are to let them go…

What are your various mediums and why did you decide to use them?

Rayaan: I’m a big fan of working in monotones, so black and white is my thing. I like the strength and the boldness of it, so I chose to work in black india ink. It’s the first time I’m using this medium so it was quite a learning curve for me! It has such an awesome variation of line quality going from very thin to very thick, so details weren’t a problem; it’s such a fluid medium. It’s waterproof too, so you can do colour washes over it without any trouble.

Leigh: I generally do graffiti, so I used spray paint and india ink too. I saw Rayaan using it, and I thought “well that’s rocking!” It looks great for the style that I was going for…

And what kind of style is that?

Leigh: …Anti-style!

Dramatic! And Anwar? Are you using india ink too?

Anwar: I thought about using it too, I mean obviously it’s quite awesome, but I prefer to use a black fine liner. I’m happy with the outcome, because of the control it allows me to have. If you look at my pieces, you’ll see that there’s a lot of detail and using a pen just seemed better for me.

There’s a heavy debate concerning the difference between graffiti, street art and vandalism isn’t there?

Leigh: I’ve been doing graffiti for four years. Graffiti has had its time in museums, sure, but it’s for the people, that’s why it’s done outside… and I don’t agree with graffiti being done indoors in a gallery setting. Spray paint is just another medium, which is one that I’ve used here, but graffiti, real graffiti, should stay outside.

Rayaan: Exactly. I love the interaction with the community that comes with graffiti. While you’re painting, you meet people; you have kids running around watching, guys coming up to you asking questions, watching you work… It’s very interactive. You won’t get that indoors at all, working on your own… that’s why I love it.

Leigh: Street art has become a huge movement. People are using it as a way to communicate… to express how they feel in their hearts, and that’s mad! A lot of places are very poor at the moment, so they use street art to say how they feel. They can go out there and do it themselves, dream something up and just do it, which is very cool.

Anwar: Yeah, and a lot of the social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter let people stay connected and share their work with other artists. Instead of just being abut Cape Town and Jo’burg, we can stay in contact with the world! A lot of what you’re seeing here is influenced by that. Our influences come from everywhere, not just one particular set of people.

NardStar*: Exactly. The theme I followed with my work is the idea of staying in touch with people from around the world, online. There’s a portrait of me and my dad; he went to Jo’burg for two years and that’s how we stayed in contact. There’s another one of my friend Kaas, who moved to Oman. It’s deeper than just social networking.

Anwar:

It’s about coming together; that’s what we’re doing here.

Rayaan: Mixing the fine arts side with the street art side… You know, Street Art is supposed to have a message. You have mass media telling people lies every day, all the time, and street art is about dropping knowledge and letting people know about things that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to access.

So did you all go to art school?

Leigh: We’re actually all graphic designers! Our aim was to go and learn how to make things and get involved, and we were so excited… but then when you get there, it’s not what you’d expect it to be. As a graphic designer you learn all about making powerful images but then when you get to the working world, it’s all about the client and there’s no expression in it. That’s why we have CORE. So we can still do what we do best, to express that frustration with having to hold ourselves back.

Rayaan: We’re all a little jaded by the industry unfortunately…

Work hard to play hard huh? Well in terms of hip hop culture, how much does that influence your work here? That’s where graffiti comes from, correct?

Anwar: Yeah, so much! I was so immersed in hip hop culture. I loved MCing and beatboxing; I used to perform with Black Noise and even got involved with Prophets of Da City as well so I was into it full time and I was trying to evolve as a human being back then too. With hip hop, it’s a positive movement that teaches knowledge of self.

It’s about trying to find out who you are and being able to do things for yourself.

Hip hop has brought me where I am today and I’m happy to be here. There’s always a message in the music which is what we’re all about– sending a message.

Leigh: …I was heavily into break dancing in high school, and I realized that the same people who love breakdancing, also like to draw! That’s how I got into graffiti. It just clicked.

Rayaan: Music totally influenced me. The rawness of hip hop was great and it just made sense for me to couple that with graffiti. Just listening to music felt right, and I even DJ’d at some point too. We’ve all been involved in the hip hop scene in some way or another.

So, of all of this… community, hip hop culture and music, what inspires you the most, and does Cape Town as a city influence your creativity at all?

Leigh: The people…definitely. This beautiful gift of a life that we have too.

Anwar: Waking up every morning thinking “today is going to be a good day,” definitely does.

Rayaan: Cape Town as a city… it’s such a symbiotic relationship really. That connectedness that we feel to this place is unbelievable. My peers inspire me the most as well. I feel so blessed to be associated with these guys! We feed off one another’s energy. As soon as one of us levels up, we try to top the next guy and so we all grow together as artists.

Leigh: We’re a family now! We didn’t know each other when we first started out. I met Rayaan at work!

Rayaan: It’s true! I went to get some things printed and I’d never touched a spray can in my life. There was a tag we were discussing, and he asked me if I was into graffiti. I told him I had a secret passion for it and I’d always wanted to try it out. After that, we painted a few walls and became solid friends after that.

So if you could paint on any surface, what would you choose?

Leigh: Giant buildings. And Bridges.

Rayaan: We’re quite inspired by the FAME street art festival in Italy. I would love to work there. See No Evil is also great for murals. It’s such a forward way of thinking, beautifying the city with street art. I don’t know why we aren’t doing something like that in Cape Town, since we have Design Capital of the World award for 2014.

Anwar: We’re really excited about tonight, not nervous at all. We put everything into this; especially those frames. We went from sawing the raw wood to sanding it, to putting the frames together…It was a long process. We spent so much time bonding while setting up, sourcing the venue, everything…

And lastly, are you guys ok with the fact that anonymity of street art is no longer there, especially because of social media?

Leigh: That’s what happens when you get online I guess, yeah we’re cool with it. It is considered a crime in some places but not as much as before. People aren’t afraid anymore. They’re ready to step up and say “yes, this is my piece.”

One thing I have noticed about Cape Town is that everyone seems to know each other, which means you end up seeing the same artists all the time, in the same circles. I know all these guys personally and it’s refreshing to see people doing something new, especially when it’s for themselves. – Guest

The CORE exhibition will be running from Septmenber 6th until month end, 2012 at The Museum Gallery, Upper Eastside Hotel, 31 Brickfield Road in Woodstock. Every Wednesday evening at 18h00 until September 26th, the artists will be hosting CORE Creative Nights, where participants will bring their own drawing materials and engage in the creative experience.

Interview: Shiba Melissa Mazaza & Silje Rolfsen
Photographer: Bernice Israel

Issue 24 of one small seed asks you to ‘Listen to my Colour and Look at my Sound’. Music, motion, words and colour – looking beyond the obvious, our latest issue brings a union of the senses. To follow is an all-inclusive preview of the new issue: a full breakdown of content that resonates with inspiration. Hold on tight…

The human story is told in the language of pop culture. Coca Cola designed Santa Claus and Hugo Boss the uniforms for the Order of the Death’s Head. Jimi played The Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock and the Devil went down to Georgia. David Byrne wore a big suit and Princess Leia that bikini. We couldn’t handle the truth, needed a bigger boat and loved the smell of napalm in the morning. Assorted male models shot JFK, RFK and JR, then Biggy Smalls, Tupac and the Sheriff. And something made Andy Warhol’s Marilyns smile. Maybe it was the hand up the Mona Lisa’s skirt. (Gustav Swart)

This issue’s theme of ‘Listen to my Colour and Look at my Sound’ led us to some odd doors as we sought artists that bridged the divide between the visual and the aural.  An interview with legendary album artist Storm Thorgerson – referred to some as the 6^th member of Pink Floyd – allowed us to revisit the aesthetics of the ’70s, while 21^st Century poster designer Dan Khulken tells us about making posters for bands like Black Keys and The National. Issue 24 is a 30 000-plus words visual explosion, and one such visually exploding artist we spoke to is the infamous Gonzo illustrator and Hunter S Thompson’s partner-in-grime, Ralph Steadman. Another artist that tore through the ’70s and still doing what he does best is Horace Panter – the bass player of The Specials. In this issue, Panter gives us a candid account of his life in music and his life as an artist, from playing with The Clash to his time working as a white van man, he shares memories of his life on a road less traveled.

Our fashion spread this issue comes direct from Tokyo, Japan. Creating a 3D-like effect, reminiscent of Nintendo games and early Star Wars films, Japanese designer Kunihiko Morinaga created his Low Resolution collection around the 8-bit inspired colorful square blocks. Mari Sarai’s lewd black and white nudes feature as this issue’s photography section, her subjects including celebs like Gavin Rossdale’s daughter Daisy Lowe and model Janice Dickinson. We have a feast for the ears in the form of interviews with Kenya’s globe conquering Just a Band and the revolutionary American poet Abiodun Oyewole – the man who robbed the KKK and worked with legendary Jazz musician Gil Scott-Heron on his famous song ‘The Revolution will not be Televised’.

Ever tasted the letter ‘f’? Or smelled the colour blue? Well, some people have! One of our main features this issue is on Synesthesia – the condition that lets people see sound as colour – and trace its path through the methods and madness of some of the brightest stars in the human firmament. Click HERE for a preview of the feature. On the local frontier, we sit down with singer/song writer/actress Sannie Fox, electronic trio Digital Rockit and all four members from Cape Town band iScreamStix. Olmeca Editión Black Tequila joins us in showcasing electronic DJs/Producers, with this issue bringing Blush n Bass and Felix Laband to the party.  We watched architecture dance slowly to visible music in our architecture feature, looking at structures like The Sum of Days, NY; Stillspotting, NY; the Jewish Museum, Berlin; Jetty Square and more.

Ending with the beginning, our cover for Issue 24 is devoted to one of the street artist/videographer Mr Brainwash’s tongue-in-cheek creations. This issue features a six-page interview with the artist, who talked to us from his L.A. home about money, art and Andy Warhol. Showcasing at 34FineArt Gallery in Woodstock, Cape Town is an exclusive selection of Mr Brainwash’s latest artwork, including issue 24’s ‘Madonna’ silk screen on paper with spray paint.

Right, without further ado… Here’s the breakdown for Issue 24 “Listen to my Colour and Look at my Sound”.

FEATURES

American Civil Rights Icon

Abiodun Oyewole: Grand, High Wizard

Founder member of The Last Poets talks about verse, Gil Scott-Heron and robbing the KKK. Click HERE to read our blog ‘The Revolution will not be Televised’ and find out more about the legendary Gil Scott-Heron: a spoken word poet, jazz genius and close friend to Abiodun Oyewole.

Defiant Photographer

Mari Sarai’s Girls on Film

Black-and-white nudes that stare right back and you and challenge the Gaze. Check out a video interview we found with Mari Sarai by visiting onesmallseed.tv HERE.

Aural architecture

Echo Chamber: The Sound of Space

Our investigation of sound and concrete spans the globe and classic art movies. First we took Manhattan, then we took Berlin. Click HERE and visit onesmallseed.tv to watch the video titled Berlin: Die Sinfonie der GroBstadt, which showcases a selection of abstract visual content that portrays the ‘life’ of a city.

Cape Town-based breakout band

iScreamStix: It ain’t Sorbet

A big scoop of local talent

Kenyan Globetrotters

Just an Interview with Just a Band

Meet the voice of East Africa’s ‘superhero’ Makmande. He may not exist but he sure kicks ass

Cross-sensory Exploration

Neuromagic: The Harmony of Synesthesia

We dive into the magical world inhabited by synesthetes: individuals who see, hear, feel, smell and even taste colour. Such people include legends of our time, like Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd, Marilyn Monroe and Vladimir Nabokov to name a few. Click HERE for a preview of the feature and then visit one small seed TV to see a video about this unique condition

Genre-busting rocker

Sannie Fox: Rage with the Machine

This star of stage and screen proves that you don’t have to be a fatbottomed girl to make the rocking world go round.

Gonzo illustrator

Ralph Steadman: Another Freak in the Freak Kingdom

We can’t stop here. It’s bat country

Controversial Pop Artist

Mr Brainwash: Laughing all the Way to the Banksy

We got a call from the man who calls himself ‘Banksy’s biggest piece of art’. We’ve uploaded a snippet of the interview featured in the magazine, simply click HERE and see if you can make out who Mr Brainwash really is…

Jozi Beats

Digital Rockit: The Neon Gods they Made

Local veterans of the electronic scene look forward and back

Classic Album Art

Storm Thorgerson: Dark Side of the Tunes

We get under the covers with the man who designed for bands like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Muse and machineri.

Troubadour’s Poster Boy

Dan Kuhlken: Dreaming of Electric Sheep

The National, The Black Keys, Red Hot Chilli Peppers… just some of the bands that LA-based design team DKNG have worked for

Musical contrasts

eleKTRONIK Dialogues

A new department brought to you in conjunction with Olmeca Editión Black Tequila dedicated to showcasing the best and brightest musical talent.

Ska rocker and painter

Horace Panter: If Music is your Special Thing

The bass player of The Specials went from fame to obscurity and back again

Avant-garde Fashion

Kunihiko Morinaga: Pretty in Pixels

Chic couture meets the chunky pixels of 8-bit arcade games on the catwalk. Check out our interview with Morinaga in the latest issue, and if you’re thirsty for more information on pixel fashion then check out our blog HERE.

DEPARTMENTS

IN STORE

Products for your eyes, hands, and mind…

BOOK REVIEWS

Get the critique on books that will read you.

SELECTED CREATIVES

We reveal the winners for Selected Creatives 06, a showcase of the very best uploaded to onesmallseed.net. Click HERE to check out who made the cut, voted by you on the one small seed network.

FILM REVIEWS

This issue we check out Mike Cahill’s Another Earth; Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar, Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, Tarsem Singh’s Immortals, Lars von Trier’s Melancholia and Paula Van der Oest’s Black Butterflies.

MUSIC REVIEWS

We dissect the beats that are supposed to move your feet.

NOW SHOWING

Issue 24 showcases some of the most gripping videos we found in 2011, including Influencers; Jeff Staple; Earth time-lapse view from Space; Press Pause Play; Morpho Towers: Two Standing Spirals; Brain Eno’s Imaginary Landscapes and Berlin Die Sinfonie Der Grosstadt, a fascinating video that sheds light on the discourse of aural architecture. Click HERE to watch these awesome videos.

THE LAST WORD

We leave this to South African writer duo Headline Payoff and illustration by Mark Venter.

Born in Paris under the name Thierry Guetta, street artist/videographer Mr Brainwash’s gap-filled biography has prompted conspiracy theorists to speculate that he’s a Banksy/Shepard Fairey/Invader project and that the acclaimed Banksy-directed documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop is a grand hoax and offers more grift than gift.

How have things changed since your first show in LA in 2008?

Time lets you get better at what you do. The show in 2008 was 18 000 square feet and this show is 80 000 square feet.

You created street art and then moved on to massive exhibitions. It’s just getting bigger and bigger. How do you pull it off?

I don’t sleep very much. Three or four hours a day is normal. I’m very passionate about my work… though I wouldn’t really call it ‘work’ if it’s something that you’re really  passionate about and have fun doing. We cry sometimes but it’s a pleasure when you finish a piece. 

How does your team handle it?

I’ve got a small team and I only use other people when I do bigger shows. It’s a small team but they are a hundred percent with me. They believe in me and where I’m going.

Do you see yourself sticking to a career as an artist? Do you think you’ll change direction?

I’m an artist. I always have been. An artist is someone who is passionate about what he does and does it from his heart. He can make it happen. An artist doesn’t have to be the best in the world and doesn’t have to listen to anybody. You just go forward with what you want, because everyone has their own life. When I made clothing, I thought like an artist and came up with something new that was only for designers. And it was the same when I started filming. I took that challenge up for ten years. I’d go out in the morning and have two or three cameras with me and I didn’t stop making it happen.

…. continued

Make sure you pick up a copy of the latest one small seed – issue 24 – to read the full interview and click HERE to read the full breakdown of issue 24!