In todays Media-driven world, people more often than not choose the „easy“ way to do things. Graffiti is no exception. Clean, replaceable and likeable images are often painted over rebellious, confronting or challenging pieces. This makes a lot of graffiti (online) easy to consume and comfortable to look at. So,what then is the „right“ way? Some artists believe that graffiti should always be uncomfortable. It should hurt as much as it feels good.This is it’s original connection to freedom and the right to exercise it. Not just in the context graffiti is made, but in regard to the styles the artist is creating. Free and challenging. Breaking the rules should be house rule number 1. For these artists freedom is at the top of their agenda doing what they want. Freedom has been forgotten by most writers and for some of the younger artists have never even known it.

„Go the right way, or the easy way“

Superspray AKA Rips GBR13

At some point I met Rips. He earnt my respect and I saw something special in his pieces. A particular character or position that reaked of rebellion with a F..k Off attitude. A touch of sympathy and a dab of humour was present also. Style is one thing, but when the persons philosophy is as good as their style, then you have something golden. Being a real writer is hard enough. To paint pieces that not every idiot can understand and don’t turn into fame formula repetitions is even harder. „At some point I decided that I will only paint pictures that I really want to“ he said. That’s it, that’s character, that’s backbone.

Cazter, Kaos, Uzi, Nug, Egs, Sabe, Yugo, Moses, Rips, – they are my heroes. Most consumers of graffiti writing and graffiti generally don’t get it. “Not traditional enough”,”too dirty”, “looks wanna be-oldschool”. You hear this a lot from old timers or young writers who have read some books and absorbed all the internet graffiti they had bandwidth for. But in the end they didn’t understand anything. Respectlessly people talk about “naive” or “funny Style”. What a lot of people forget to consider is if a writer paints toy pieces because he can’t achieve anything else, or if it is a conscious decision and the artist can paint what ever style or technique he wants.

For me the pieces of Rips are a ray of light in a world where sprayers (they are not all writers) use their faces as marketing objects for can companies which goes against what we did and still do fight against: The ugly and unappetising mainstream. Those who can’t feel it can’t understand it. In my opinion, a real writer forms himself out of style and character, but not from just one them! Rips is one of those writers. (JYM 129)

(Text summarized and translated from original text by Jym 129)