As mentioned in my artistic statement, this is how it all started. “A vandal had written ´Destroy Power, Not People´ on the electric transmission building. In 1988 (or -89) when my perception of power was limited to a source of energy I went home from school and started to scribble down my first piece on a paper, attaching a yellow circle with the symbol of radioactive radiation. The style of the letters had already been introduced from the stickers inside Danish bubblegum packages. Two decades later, the power remains but my interpretation has changed, so has the style, today I use it as confrontation which intends to open up dialogue, a dyslexic language targeting the alleged veracity….”
Power 1988-89
The sketch is my first graffiti sketch ever and I am very pleased that I have kept it because it defines (even though it was a misinterpretation) where I’m at today and where I’m going tomorrow. In my opinion it is the essence of my artistic work and contains many the Capism elements. To be honest, the outlines isn’t that out of shape (or!?), it has pronounce colours (a basic box of Crylons!?) and a clear message (pro-nuclear!?). To put it in short, it is a visual debate for the blind. Anyway, the circle was closed earlier this summer when I put a `Breaking Silence´ poster at the same electric transmission building as where the `Destroy Power, Not People´ text was written. A blind leading a blind and round and round we go.
Nasty 1990
I remember this spring night in 1990 as it was yesterday, the four of us, loosely formed under the name `Partners in Crime (PIC) ´ decided to make our first piece. A couple of night before some friends had done the fresh `Wacko Cop´ piece at the school yard and we decided to burn these punks. Actually they were our good friends, but hey, we´re from a small town and we needed the battle.
With this piece I think we got them pretty bad, (They used red paint for the highlights, second outline and signatures which is still WACK!!), but not long after they totally destroyed us. Correct me if I am wrong but I think their crew was called ´the Baseheads´. For us, we decided to get rid of our crew name since it was stolen from Spraycan Art. Later I proposed to rename our crew to C.I.A (Crazy Inside Artists), which was also stolen, from the same book. Like no one would figure it out?
Robot 1990
I won´t take much more of your time but just want to point out one detail in the lower-right corner sketch to prove my innovative skills (also known as biting). The more detailed parts (chest and helmet) of the robot are actually based on Robocop. I was putting the Robocop 1 cassette into our BETAMAX player (never been down with VHS because my father always told me VHS was lacking in picture and sound quality). Then I forwarded to one of the final scenes, pressed pause when Robocop himself was in a good angle and did the sketch straight of the TV set. If I did not tell you now I would probably have got away with it!