Local graffiti pioneer “PIBG” and Mainland graffiti artist “SIK” collaborated recently as part of the 16th Communication Festival (COMMFEST) hosted by the Year 4 Communication Students at the University of Macau
Local graffiti pioneer “PIBG” and Mainland graffiti artist “SIK (Chen Jun) from Zhuhai were recently invited to a major graffiti event “My Humble Words” at the University of Macau, to co-create graffiti artworks together for the first time. Their colorful art creations attracted thousands of students and teachers to participate in this event, as part of the 16th Communication Festival (COMMFEST) hosted by Year 4 Communication Students from UM.
The impressive collaboration was displayed on a 7.32m wide and 2m high graffiti wall. On the opening day of “My Humble Words”, the pair spent around eight hours working on it, taking their time to find inspiration and create the best possible work, while also having to deal with occasional showers of rain.
PIBG’s work features a bright brimming eye in the middle, which when viewed from closer up reveals a sharp red triangle in the right corner. Representing a bird’s beak, the eye can appear like a bird’s head from another perspective.
“This is a Puffin’s mouth,” explains PIBG. “Puffins are seabirds with attractive colourful beaks and a strong ability to survive. I like the features and characteristics of these birds.”
SIK’s artwork, painted in light blue, is located on the left and right sides of PIBG’s. It is written graffiti consisting of some irregular shapes and arrows elements. And while it might seem like the written text is easier to create, SIK explains that the stereoscopic design of the characters can be even more complicated and challenging than painting an image like an eye.
“As a graffiti artist, everyone has a nickname to represent themselves. Mine is ‘SIK’. The arrows represent my determination in my graffiti career,” he says, “I used blue and orange as the beginning colours, because this pair of contrasting colours is an easy match with other ones, while visually distinctive but not abrupt.”
This ‘Crossover’ artwork, featuring the fusion of both images and text, displayed at this year’s COMMFEST, was aimed at helping students to appreciate how these two most common graffiti types can be combined together, and to encourage them to communicate about art and express themselves boldly through their creations.
“Graffiti always appears in unexpected places to enhance the knowledge of art and reflect the artists’ aspirations” says PIBG. “Young people don’t feel strange about graffiti in the modern era, but it can still be controversial.”
Nowadays, graffiti is becoming more and more popular in Asia with street art culture being featured on young people’s clothing and fashion, and in entertainment and festivals.
Shenzhen University has held graffiti exhibitions and other graffiti competitions on manhole covers among middle schools in other Mainland cities. The “Local Ginger- Cenozoic Graffiti Art Exhibition” and “Outloud Street Art Festival” in Macau are also dedicated to promoting graffiti culture and inspiring more art lovers.
Despite its increasing popularity, graffiti can still be a contentious issue in society. Because it usually appears in public spaces or on private property without owner’s permission, it is viewed as vandalism, which is a punishable crime. And some people view areas full of graffiti as having higher crime rates. Throughout their careers, both PIBG and SIK have been fined and punished for their activities.
“Creating graffiti on any kinds of public facilities and equipment is breaking the law, although Macau is still a place that allows artists to express themselves freely,” notes SIK.
Interestingly, he points out that while painting graffiti on walls in the Mainland is considered vandalism, it doesn’t incur any criminal charges. “But there is strong censorship of the content and ideas presented,” SIK adds.
So how did PIBG and SIK start drawing graffiti and come to treat it as lifelong career?
“When I was young, I saw some Portuguese drawing Marijuana leaves on the wall near a football field. I was curious about that and tried to paint as well,” PIBG recalls from his childhood. “From then, I’ve never stopped doing graffiti and found a lot of inspiration in the masterpieces of a well-known German graffiti artist CANTWO.”
PIBG has collaborated with various famous brands like Moschino, Nike, Redbull, as well as performing at different graffiti events in local hotels and art festivals at Rua do Cunha. His works often feature figures and animals that look absurd and playful. Furthermore, he is dedicated to promoting local graffiti culture while fighting for more creative spaces for artists in Macau.
Meanwhile, SIK has been drawing on street walls since he was in middle school, before going on to study animation production art at university.
“I was crazy spraying my nickname just for fun at first. Later I joined a team with some members and we started our graffiti careers,” SIK says, adding that he has won many championships in Mainland graffiti activities and now runs “The Spot Graffiti Workshop” in Zhuhai.
“In Macau, young people don’t paint graffiti very much. There is a gap between graffiti artists of my age and the freshmen. Maybe lots of young people are unsure about the future of graffiti in this city. Anyway, I still believe that nothing is impossible and hope young art lovers can insist on pursuing their dreams. There is no doubt that engaging in art will sometimes bring you fame and fortune, however, as an artist we cannot measure our success only by profit, because that is just by-product of art,” PIBG concludes.
The pair also hope the governments of Macau and Guangdong will sponsor more events for graffiti lovers as well as establishing archives to record the history of graffiti works in the region. They believe this is an important way to enhance the development of the Creative Cultural Industries between Mainland and Macau.