Railside x Askew interview
We caught up with Askew, a self-taught, multidisciplinary artist from Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, known for his pioneering influence on the country’s graffiti and urban art scene. With more than three decades in the game, his practice has evolved from underground graffiti roots to large-scale public murals and contemporary studio work.
Having recently designed a piece for our Railside merch, we sat down with Askew to chat about his graffiti beginnings, his creative evolution, and the inspiration behind his design. Here’s what he had to say.
RS: How did you first get into graffiti, and what attracted you to it?
A: I feel like I got into graffiti in an era where it was just synonymous with being young in Auckland city. It felt like everyone had a tag in the early 90’s, whether they actually wrote or drove the car for the kid that would jump out and paint the roll call. I have earlier memories though, seeing Smooth Crew and early USP murals from Shine along the Morningside tracks, Fly had a piece at the Kingsland shops and on the side of the School Reserve building. These pieces felt like relics already even though they’d only been painted a few years prior to us moving to the neighbourhood.
RS: Who are three writers that have influenced your style and why?
A: I think there’s likely too many artists to name to narrow that to just three. Graffiti is a massive conversation and post-internet it’s global. If I was to try and narrow things down to three groups of artists that have personally impacted me it would be the Auckland writers I came up with plus the generation after mine, especially everyone in TMD. It’s hard to even explain how impactful and motivating someone like Phat1 was, Exist directly impacted my way of thinking about style and Berst is really in my top 5 painters of any era globally. Then I would say the impact of the Germans /Swiss writers I met: Loomit, Daim, Can2, Wow123, Atom and Smash137 had an indelible effect on my thinking and work. Then obviously MSK and AWR have also had a huge impact on me. Revok, Rime, Ewok, Zes and everyone else in these crews have massively shaped my mentality and approach to painting.
RS: How has your style changed since you started?
A: It’s funny, I was really bad at graffiti for a long time and yet a lot of the ideas I’ve refined over my career are style visible in the early stuff. It cracks me up, I guess I was always ambitious beyond my actual ability!
RS: Who are three writers or artists that are creating interesting work?
A: I think that goes back to my earlier list again. I really only paint for my crew mates and friends, it’s the only people I still want to impress.
RS: What motivates you to keep creating after all these years?
A: The challenge of creativity is finding new and fresh possibilities when so much scope has been covered so well by others. Adding to the conversation of graffiti or other visual art forms is both daunting and motivating.
RS: What are some attributes of great and innovative graffiti?
A: I’ve always respected when people can work within the limited parameters of foundational graffiti and still find a way to push the boundaries. Anyone can completely disregard the rules or equally, just follow the blueprint but innovation happens somewhere between the two.
RS: What role does urban art play in society and why?
A: I think that’s too broad a question. It’s many things to many people. A younger more idealistic version of me would have talked about its transformative power and that is often true but there’s also a lot of really reductive and derivative work out there. Something that has struck me in the age of social media especially is how a lot of large mural work has started to boil down to 3-4 main motifs that you see at every festival and in every town. I think it’s something we are witness across design trends, fashion, music and even architecture in general. It’s a strange algorithmic feedback loop. Also so much in the world has been modified to be best communicated on the viewing platform which is mostly the smartphone. I think we need to get back to being OK with not being everywhere all at once and prioritising discovery and in person experience.
RS: How could we build a stronger and more impactful graffiti community?
A: I don’t have an answer for that and maybe I also do care about that specifically. Or maybe I just care about building and strengthening community more generally and if Graffiti is your gateway or vehicle for doing that then that’s great. I’ve always appreciated how wide-ranging my friend base is, the places I’ve been, my experiences and I guess the ability to take people as I meet them, accept each other despite our quirks and differences and that all came from painting graffiti so whatever allows that to continue is good in my opinion.
RS: What advice would you give to an emerging writer?
A: Learn the foundations then explore and indulge your interests, wherever they lead you.
RS: What is the inspiration for your T Shirt design?
A: I’ve been US based for the last 10 years and I’ve watched this society struggle to hold it’s democracy together. I’ve made a lot of text based works on the subject over the last few years, as a provocation for people to reflect on the ideals that bode well for society. I think we’ve become so binary in our thinking since becoming such an online culture - treating every expression or hit of the like button as an endorsement and being fearful of being wrong. This has shaped the various ways people behave on the online platforms, whether it’s scolding and policing each other or trolling and subverting attention in negative ways - it used to feel like an online phenomenon but gradually some of the weirder and fringe aspects of it all now impact policy and there are real world material impacts. When you can witness politicians saying things that are so far downstream from their source on image boards like 4Chan, and then enacted in policies that allow violence and cruelty towards certain communities it’s a weird thing to get your head around. Getting outside, meeting people in your community, traveling and keeping an open mind. Reading lots of books, having room for healthy debate… These are things we need to keep doing.
Link to Railside x Askew shirt here.
