SPLICED LIFE /
CREATIVE PROFILE / SKULLBOY
ISSUE 02
Where does the pseudonym come from?
I’ve always had sketchbooks as a kid but graffiti
was what gave me a real direction and interest in
what I’m doing now, so obviously as soon as you pick
up a spraycan you have to adopt some bizarre alterego. A few years and a few aliases later, ‘Skullboy’ is
the one that stuck. So I’ve been working as ‘Skullboy’
since about 2006/7 and regret choosing that name
every day.
Your work often dances along the border
between pessimistically dark and idealistically
vulnerable (take for example the collaboration
with Lesley Tuchten on ‘Tar Heart’). That’s what I
think makes you so intriguing as an artist. Would
you say your work’s an accurate portrayal of your
view of the world?
Yeah of course – I constantly use my work to
analyse my own beliefs and opinions. I think it all
stems from an interest in the human race. I’m still
trying to get my head around how we as people
(myself included) are so incredible and dynamic but
yet have this unwavering ability to completely fuck
things up. Humans really are a terrible species. We’re
all fucked, we’re always going to be fucked, we’re just
sitting around waiting to see how we can invent new
ways of fucking things up.
Your 2012 exhibition, You & Me (A Series Of First
Times) is one of those ‘I wish I thought of it first’
concepts and essentially a collaboration with
100’s of anonymous participants. Tell us about the
experience, and how it all came together.
That project came together after a few drunken
conversations with friends about ‘our first times’.
It was an eye-opener and a real treat to be let
into people’s most intimate milestones. From
there, I basically took research from anonymous
participants at a few local bars and gathered stories
of their sexual debuts. From those, I created 100
artworks based on the research. It was a long, hard
and emotionally taxing project but it was fuckin’
worth it. It certainly didn’t bring me the art world
recognition I thought it would but it certainly helped
me understand people a lot better.
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