NZ Performance Car: Hi, Smugz. Readers will
recognize your name from the rotary, burnout, and
graffiti scenes, but what they might not have yet seen
is your automotive art. Can you tell us how you got into
drawing and when it all started?
Smugz: Hey, NZPC. Hmm, I guess it all started in the early ’80s
when I was five-ish and did my first mural — on our lounge wall.
I found my mum’s eyeliner and thought it would be wicked to do
a full-sized house, clouds, sun, etc. on the wall. When my mum
came in, for some reason she was not impressed. I thought it was
the bee’s knees! My backside had other opinions, though. That’s
probably the earliest I got into art.
So, you’ve always had a talent for drawing?
Yeah, I could always draw, I guess. I used to copy pictures from
comic books and these World War I and II books that you used
to get in the ’80s. I loved drawing the Spitfires and fighter planes.
Then Airwolf came out in comic form, so I reproduced the entire
book. In primary school, everyone was drawing these warrior
muscle dudes, so, because they were all doing that, I wanted to
draw something different. At high school [Penrose High School],
they employed me to do all the cafeteria signs for lunch specials.
It was a good gig; I got paid and scored a free lunch. All that led
to the graffiti scene, and that’s where I really started expanding
my art skills and thinking outside the mediocre scene of art at
the time; I think that is what has always defined my style. I still
don’t know where I got any talent from as no one in my family is
artistic [laughs].How did your talents as a graff artist transform into
drawing cars?
It was what was around me at the time, and what I could put my
own spin on in the car art scene that I had discovered. When
I was young, my mum used to see this guy who had all these
dope rides like Impala wagons, ’32 Mercury, Fairlane 500, etc.
They didn’t really appeal to me then, but the older I got the more I
appreciated what I was surrounded by. After I bought my second
Series 1 RX-7, my interest in cars started to kick off — the rota
scene, Rotaholikz, and Hiroshima Death Skreamz; the rest
is history.
I was surrounded by it all, and one day, kicking it with the bro
‘Chill’, we saw these drawings that had big outrageous wheels
and jelly mould–looking bodies.
I said to him, “What’s up with this shit; I’m gonna try to draw my
own style”, and drew my 808 sedan slammed and added rota
graphics to it.
Chill said to me, “Bro, that’s sick; you should try to draw this car,
and this car, and this car.”
That turned into people coming over and wanting their cars
drawn too. I drew quite a few over a seven-month period, and,
around the same time, I started airbrushing cars, so the skills
developed together.NAME: ‘SMUGZ’
LOCATION: MIGHTY MANAWATU
OCCUPATION: SELF-EMPLOYED ARTIST
CONTACT: FACEBOOK — KUSTOM AUTO ART BY SMUGZ