Mar 03, 2014 8 Questions With: James “SheOne” Choules
James “sheOne” Choules is a self-taught artist who first got into graffiti years ago, and then detoured from the graffiti masses, following his own creative path and producing an impressive archive of work in a wide variety of media. I was first introduced to his work about a decade back, when I was peddling gear via modem for a living, and he was a prominently featured artist working in collaboration with a British men’s streetwear/lifestyle label called Addict. It was an interesting period, which James talks about here. He’s had an incredibly impressive roster of solo exhibitions and group shows in the meantime. I’ve remained a fan ever since, so I’m absolutely thrilled he could find the time to talk with us. James is currently working on a book which will be bundled with a 7″ record and is currently available for pre-order via Gamma Proforma.
What are you currently working on?
Currently going through my image archive, sourcing material for the first book that is being published about my works. It’s going to be limited edition hardback focusing on my painting output over the last couple of decades. I guess you could call it a retrospective, however it won’t be so chronological. It is actually quite daunting deciding what finally goes in and at the same time very exciting as a lot of the work is my personal photography that pre-dates the internet and so has not been seen before. I am also interested in drawing a line under this period of my work, to wrap it up in a box and say okay, whats next.
How would you describe your job?
I am an artist, so the short answer is my job is to make things that nobody has ever seen before.
What does your average work day look like?
Coffee. Walk the dogs. Making work. I tend to be working on a bunch of things at once, painting, taking photos of the process, making collage, more photos, drawing, then all these things cross over and the results get dripped out onto my Tumblr and Instagram and then filed for future exhibitions and projects.
What’s the best thing about living and working in Gracia?
Firstly the climate, being able to go take a coffee on a terrace in the morning, or take a swim in the sea in the afternoon. Secondly the isolation, it is much simpler to live and concentrate on my work here than say in London or New York. Here nobody asks you, ‘What you working on?’, ‘Who are you showing with?’ etc, it is much more laid back which suits me fine. It is an interesting period for artists like myself at the moment because the internet enables a kind of curatorial independence. It is really possible to control the arc of one’s output and present work the way you want it to be perceived. We are used to consuming exhibitions online, and being able to have dialog with artists around the world, it doesn’t really matter where people are based anymore because we all live on each other’s pockets.
Where do you find inspiration?
I don’t actually believe in inspiration. I think you either have an idea or you don’t. I am a great believer in that we already know what we want to say, it is purely a question of finding the right way to say it. Graffiti at it’s core is a very simple concept, design your name into a painting. Okay I did that, it took a long time but eventually I achieved a personal version of an accidental art form that was invented by teenagers. People only get into something, whether its art, playing guitar, skateboarding etc., precisely because they have seen other people do it and they want to be a part of a movement. So primarily you participate by duplicating what has been done before in order to gain acceptance, the ironic thing is that the only way you will ever gain recognition or notoriety is if you turn your back on that and bring something completely different. Put it like this, if you are trying to design a graffiti tag that looks like a graffiti tag, then you have already lost.
As a kid, what did you want to be when you grow up?
I wanted to be in a rock band. I played drums in a group when I was at school, heavy metal is a very visual music and where i got my first real interest in typography and being part of a tribe. I would spend more time drawing band logos on things than i did actually playing. I went to see Motorhead play live a while back, they had just released a new album and were playing all the new songs, the crowd was getting restless and kept shouting out demanding the classics. Lemmy grabs the mic and says, we made these new songs for you and we believe in them and you are going to listen wether you like it or not. Eventually they played ‘Ace Of Spades’ and the crowd went crazy. And that’s exactly how i feel about my work at the moment. I started out as a Graffiti artist, the subcultural construct of this once youthful counter-culture dictated that I make work under an alter-ego, so on the one hand it’s easy to be SHEONE, turn up in a hat, light a few cigarettes, empty some rattlecans and make some cloudy expressive typography. I was part of the first generation to make successful collaborations with clothing and product companies who wanted to use my ‘brand’ of so-called urban art. This was great for a while but what people don’t realise is that at times this can be creatively very limiting because invariably the next company basically want the same thing you did for the last company and so when I want to present new, more subtle or personally relevant subjects they get knocked back. There is a paradox at this level because you feel you have been accepted as an artist but in reality people just like to like the brand. People want you to paint the same thing you painted ten years ago. So it got to the point where I had to start turning these projects down and also stop being a part of group shows where I felt I was being levered into someone else’s idea of what I do for the sake of shows trying to brand a movement.
What are you reading at the moment?
A Philosophical Enquiry Into The Origin of Our Ideas Of The Sublime and The Beautiful by Edmund Burke. I am reading the second edition ‘with an introductory discourse concerning Taste’ but it was printed in 1759 so the letter S is printed as an ƒ so it is taking longer to read than I would hope. My work is very ‘word’ oriented so I do consume a lot of books particularly William Gibson, Raymond Chandler, Shakespeare and ’60s Nurse Novels. I love turn of phrase, slang, corruption of terminology, so my sketchbooks are actually full of words rather than drawing.
What’s your favorite post-work destination?
Fortunately there is a great cinema in my neighbourhood that shows films in their original language (I don’t have T.V.) so either that or dinner someplace minimal.
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