Street Art Confidential

Photographer Peter Goodbody keeps a lookout for changes to the urban environment, a practice that’s led him to spot a pair of artists specialising in paste-ups…

I’ve always thought of street artists as a philanthropic breed; a kind of public service who take the time to make art and then exhibit it for the public to find in back streets or alley ways; on a piece of unloved hoarding or in a subway or a tunnel somewhere.

They share a bit of their vision and work for others to appreciate and absorb during their trips around town. Or something like that. What do I know? I’m not one of them, but I’ve been fascinated for a while now with why street artists do what they do and what drives them to create a piece that’s ultimately disposable and unlikely to last for any great length of time.

I’m a photographer and I’m always on the lookout for things to shoot. There are only so many Liverpool skyline shots that are required. I look for changes in my city – the little things, the details. Street art fits that bill perfectly. It provides an ever-changing landscape and it’s the reason why I always get off the bus on the way to work by the Chinese Arch – I love walking through Ropewalks on a search for something new to see. There usually is.

Recently two artists who have grabbed my attention. The first is a Liverpool art-man with fingers in many pies, Tristan Brady Jacobs and the other is new kid on the (Liverpool) block D7606. Both of them work with paste-ups.

I met up with Tristan in Mello Mello for a beer and a chat about his recent Hobo series of works. He’s an interesting, eloquent guy, who is clearly passionate and knowledgeable about his subject. For him, the paste-ups are the expression of an idea released into the wild. He may not have analysed in his own mind whether it’s a good idea or not and, of course, no idea what the reaction to the work will be.

For a street artist, that reaction may be somewhat subtle, but Tristan was delighted when someone put a couple of gold eyes onto one of his pieces in Tunnage Square. That’s a reaction to the work and it clearly satisfied the artist.

The conversation with Tristan twisted and turned around many subjects – The Futurist Manifesto, the power of the camera, strange (although interesting) times in Liverpool after the riots, Voodoo Dolls – that kind of thing. At first, these strands seem a bit random, but ultimately it’s about having a conversation with your audience.

He has done a lot of work recently in the Baltic triangle and that excites because of the nature of the area. There is still traditional industry and manufacturing going on there, as well as newcomers such as Camp and Furnace and Baltic Creative. Doing paste-ups in this part of the city engages with people and integrates with the area. It provokes real conversations with real people – the ones who sell tea and fit tyres. That’s a world away from traditional gallery space and it integrates and becomes a part of the community.

D7606’s responses to my emails were surprisingly similar in approach. His feedback comes from the usual social media suspects – flickr, Instagram and facebook – when others post photos of his work. There isn’t any great deep meaning to his phone box pieces, he tells me it was an idea that just popped into his head. And, I guess, like Tristan, without any artistic head-scratching going on he simply wants to have his work on show.

D7606 is more of an itinerant street artist, having put up work in London, Sheffield, Manchester as well as in Liverpool. Colour and the absence of political messages are themes of his work, but he says a recent black and white piece he did in Manchester of Edward Snowden is pushing personal boundaries and testing his skills.

Towards the end of my conversation with Tristan he talked about glue, something with which he now knows probably more than the rest of us. Choosing brick walls as a surface for his work has meant that he needs to develop techniques to stop the paste-ups disintegrating too quickly. But this is a metaphor, too. Street artists are a social glue, he says. People want to engage with them and he cites the Gormleys and Superlambanana as examples.  People have questions and street artists can answer them, literally.

I ask D7606 about his choice of locations for his work and he tells me that going to new areas or cities is the thrill for him. Recent trips to Sheffield and Liverpool have given him so much love and that makes it especially worthwhile. I finish by asking him why he chooses to use paste-ups as his medium.  He can’t paint or stencil, so this keeps him happy, is his honest and humble reply.

Look out for more work from both Tristan Brady Jacobs and D7606 in Liverpool. They each have plans for future projects.

Peter Goodbody

Click on their names for more work from Tristan Brady Jacobs and D7606