My day usually starts around 6:30 am, when my three children (ages three, six, and seven) are up with a bang. Family chaos ensues: breakfast negotiations, school uniforms, trying to check my Gmail while answering questions about the capital of Germany and how to spell “triangle.” It’s hectic, but it’s the pace I feel most comfortable with given my career, which on any given day can see me skating in and out of bus lanes to make street art films, leading graffiti tours of Barcelona and Lisbon, or working directly. with collectors to acquire works by street artists such as see through and david shillinglaw.
This morning, I chatted with fashion brand Champion about a project via Google Meet. Champion first made the hoodie widely available in the 1930s, and it was later adopted by basketball players, skateboarders, graffiti artists, and hip-hop artists. We’re collaborating with a team of street artists to produce a line of custom hoodies for hip-hop’s 50th anniversary, so using Meet makes sense as no matter where anyone is, they can join on any device without have to log in. On another day, you might be writing the introduction to British graffiti artist Mr. Cenz’s new book, or talking to interior designers like Clare Gaskin, introducing you to the right artist to create bespoke street art murals inside the homes or commercial spaces of the clients. .
I spend half my time in my home office, where I have very few free walls. It makes a nice backdrop for video calls, especially when using my Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, which captures the artwork as it should. And because the camera is in the middle of the frame, it facilitates eye contact, which is so important for virtual communication. That’s why I’m a huge fan of Samsung, because I can trust that the products will continue to raise the bar. I’d be so lost without my Galaxy phone and tablet, so it’s a relief to know that if something goes wrong, there’s an on-site repair service that aims to fix it within an hour. Street art is a global art form, so while these gatherings can often take place in different time zones, technology makes it simple and seamless.
My love for street art began at Sotheby’s, an international auction house, where I worked after studying for an MA in art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. Banksy asked me to catalog a spray stencil on a piece of cardboard, which was relatively unknown at the time. It was the first time his artwork had come up for auction, which is a significant moment for an artist. Street art was just beginning to seep into the general consciousness. I felt part of history. At 29, I decided to leave the relative security of employment and start my own business. People thought he was crazy because Sotheby’s works are like gold dust. Many thought that I would sit on the couch all day. But I have never worked harder in my life.
Around noon, I make time for a cold water swim at Tooting Bec Lido. It’s something I’m dogmatic about doing every day. You feel a real kick going into cold water, but there is also peace because it takes you out of your head and into your body. You are literally just focusing on breathing. When I go out, I feel like a new person.
In the afternoon, I head to East London to organize my street art tour of Shoreditch. I am very interested in the relationship between art history and street art, so my tour is to show people how the Australian artist Jimmy C is inspired by the pointillist work of Georges Seurat and the post-impressionists, or the cultural significance of the pieces by the Italian artist Alo, such as the portraits of Mia Zapata, who led the punk band The Gits.
I have a lot of stock images saved in Google Photos – it has a simple and intuitive tagging system that makes it easy to find images and helps me refer to artists, compare them, contrast them, and that’s easier on the larger screen of the Galaxy Tab . I am also interested in teaching people not only what to look for when it comes to street art, but also how to find it. To be an experienced street art hunter, you need to look in all directions and use all of your senses. I often duck down a side street if I catch the faint whiff of paint in the air, hoping to find a fresh mural painted by an artist.
Today’s tour, which typically lasts around 90 minutes, ended with the group painting a mural together, after donning protective gear à la Breaking Bad. Most of my clients tend to be well-heeled, suit-and-boots-wearing corporate types who may not see themselves as particularly creative, but always love it. Also, they get to rub shoulders with some big name street performers, Jim Vision and Tizer to name a few, which is a real treat. It is a pleasure to send them photos of themselves painting, knowing that it has helped them discover a different part of themselves. And if anyone has any privacy concerns, I can encrypt the images and share them securely from my devices using Samsung Private Share.
While in Shoreditch, I took the opportunity to put on my skates and shoot some short videos for my Instagram channel, the graffiti house. It started during lockdown as a way to share a bit about my urban adventures and promote my tours. I bought a Samsung Galaxy S22 and a selfie stick, and had the bright idea of using skates to cover more ground faster: I was a competitive figure skater as a kid, so I’m comfortable on wheels. One-minute videos have become wildly popular, opening up opportunities as far away as Hong Kong and Australia. I hope trips to Paris, Miami and Mexico City are on the cards in the future.
I believe that street art speaks a universal language that people connect with no matter where they are from. It is truly accessible with few or no barriers to entry and is by its very nature democratic – it is literally painted on the street for all to see. It’s a great gift. Social media and smartphone technology has really helped it explode in the last decade or so. It’s so easy to take amazing street art images, film reels and share them with the world. And the UK has always been at the forefront of the graffiti and street art scenes, with names like Banksy, Stik, Ben Eine and D*Face now known around the world.
The nature of my job means I’m always on the go and working in a highly visual space collaboratively requires my technology needs to be best in class – everything I use needs to be reliable, fast and camera quality really matters . also. Fortunately, I found just what I needed: both the Samsung Galaxy S22 phone and the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra answer all my technological needs. People never believe me when I say that I use my phone and a selfie stick to make my videos because the quality is so good. Both the S22 and the Tab have an 8k camera – that’s the highest resolution for TV out there! The two-way director’s view mode on the S22 is also very useful. It means I can film myself talking and the artwork in front of me at the same time, not to mention the editing package, which is simple and intuitive. I also use Google Maps a lot, marking the route I took on a tour for clients who want to do it again, or just keep it as a souvenir. Plus, Samsung’s S Pen is useful for annotating images and videos for social media, or jotting down notes to remind me of a job to add to my to-do list for later.
That makes it seem like I’m always working. I’m not. Tonight, I’m heading home to spend time with my family and read Roald Dahl’s George’s Marvelous Medicine. My wife and I have stopped watching TV before bed, instead listening to a podcast or hosting friends from my folk band who might drop in for a quick jam. Then it’s time for bed before getting up to do it all over again tomorrow. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
