New Artist (NA): You're known
for graffiti-style and large scale
spray paint artworks. Tell us
how your work has evolved.
Jody Thomas (JT): I started spray
painting in 1987 when I was
a shy teenager. I was told by
a school friend that there was
a graffiti arts project at a nearby
youth club. Armed with my
GCSE folder of 2000AD inspired
drawings and paintings I took the
bus down there. I met the youth
leader John Nation and he said:
“Can you recreate that on the
walls here?“ I nervously nodded
without a single idea of how I was
going to go about doing it...
I never knew that Barton Hill
Youth Club would become such
a legendary part of Bristol’s
graffiti movement. It really is
the birthplace of graffiti and
streetart in Bristol and John
Nation is the man who inspired
many of Bristol‘s artists including
Inkie, Cheo, Banksy and myself.
Spray paint was and still is the
tool of the graffiti artist. Back
in the late 70s and early 80s we
used car paint – Cortina reds
and Vauxhall blues. The paint
has really moved on, it‘s more art
specific, you can slow it down by
keeping it cold and using thinner
nozzles or use ‘fat caps’ to cover
wide areas. I always say it‘s really
a kind of crude airbrush now.
In the past five years or so,
I‘ve developed my style and I‘m
aiming more for photorealism.
It’s possible with today‘s paintbecause you can ‘cut back’, ie, lay
one colour almost immediately
over another wet colour without
them running or reacting against
each other. Now you can achieve
all kinds of effects – take a look
at the quality of the work out
there – it‘s almost Old Master
level, but with spray paint! You
can cover large areas quickly
and that makes painting at scale
much easier. I noticed that a lot
of the photorealistic painters –
Maclaim, Herakut and Bestever- used a piece of card to block
the paint. In practice, I found the
edge too sharp and also thought
it looked a little too like a stencil,
so I bought a box of surgical
gloves and used my hand to
block and bounce the paint off
ARTWORK:ORNIS OBSCURAonto the canvas. As far as I know
it’s a unique technique and other
artists remark how odd it looks.
I go through hundreds of gloves!NA: Is there a favourite piece?
JT: The one I’m most happy
with is the hand dripping black
goo down the wall that I did at
Upfest this year. I got my wife
to plunge her hand into a pot
of black masonry emulsion,
then hurriedly took lots shots at
different angles. The wall I was
given was tall and thin and suited
a piece like this. I think it worked
well in terms of the reflections
in the paint and the scale,
although battling the elements
and working on a scaffold tower
it’s really hard to see the piece
until it‘s too late – ie, when the
scaffold is taken down!NA: What has been your most
challenging piece of work?
JT: I did a canvas a few years ago
of a girl with white paint pouring
over her head; recreating the
look of the paint falling was a
massive challenge. Recreating
a photo is intrinsically difficult
and it‘s been pointed out to me
before that I‘m actually creating
human-made photography...
creating textures, form and good
highlight and shadows is tricky.NA: Describe how our readers
could try something similar.
JT: First, anyone getting into
streetart/graffiti needs to get
to know the paint and nozzle
types. Get used to controlling
the paint, slowing it down to
create sharp lines or blend and
fade evenly. Get some technique
down before you look at content.
If you want to stand out from
the crowd, avoid using stencils- you will look like every other
‘street artist’ out there. Look at
Pinterest, Instagram and around
Left: Jody creates his pieces
working from photos of
models. “Look constantly at
your subject or image and
squeeze every detail out of it
that you can see,“ he says.Jody Thomas