If you were Jenny and Scott Morrison was asking your advice on current sexual harassment issues – which or what character would you give him? Right now, I feel they’d have to be a right couple of monsters! I’m not sure, I hope that I wouldn’t  be able to draw them so soulless. I watch people a lot, observation is an important part of “information gathering” that I do, so I watch people’s actions & for me their actions don’t match their words, so to create something that dissconbobulated would be a challenge, but then history is littered with monsters posing as humans, so following that thread of thought perhaps it would have to be a more traditional portrait, to show the monster for what they really are.

Thinking about broader issues in the world right now – which of your characters from your body of work would you hand to people, places and movements right now and why? Interestingly, I have been approached by a few groups that have been protesting the policies on climate change in the last year or so, Street Art Rebellion reached out last year, they are a French group that have been billposting works from a network of artists around the world, all the posters are available for free to download & print & all about the current sitc & wanting change to policys on the global climate now. More recently Extinction Rebellion in WA asked me to work with them, we are following up on this. For a long time I have tried to place messages in my work, that perhaps hasn’t been so obvious, but more open to personal interpretation, so for it to be seen as something that might help is a good thing, public space is exactly that, given or taken, so it’s always meant a message to me whether people understood it or not, whether it had permission or not, it's very different from paintings in galleries or private spaces & we have done a lot of charity work over the years, from small workshops to limited editions for the WA Aids Council or On My Feet the homeless charity so we often pick things that are close to our hearts or we have empathy for to try to help & will continue to do so.

You are now, and have been for quite a while, one of Western Australia’s (and Australia’s) great artists on the global scene – how do you feel when you look back over your career, body of work and exhibitions/initiatives/festivals you have been a part of? Again, very kind of you to say so. It doesn’t often get said like that so it’s very humbling. I often feel like I could or should have done more. However, someone pointed out to me that I have done a lot of work over the years, so much so that they were struggling to get their head around it! Having said that, there have been a lot of good things I’ve been fortunate to be involved in. I was really privileged to be the first street artist to create a sanctioned work as part of the Florence Biennale in Italy in 2018 – this was a really awesome project and I was really blown away to be able to create this work. 2009 The Ghost Village, in Scotland, is still a standout: three days in a remote ghost town in Scotland, total freedom, no agendas or briefs… I painted 21 characters moving to a communal space… the inhabitants of the village that never came... It led me to being asked to be involved in The Underbelly Project (2010), in New York City, which was an unsanctioned street art gallery curated by Workhorse & Pac in an unused subway station. This project was extraordinary to be part of. Earlier, 2005 I think, was the first year of the Wynwood Walls in Miami curated by Primary Projects. My friend Kenton Parker introduced me to Books and Jo & Typoe, and I did a little jammie for them, then came back a few years later on a bigger project with my friend Remi Rough (we’ve done many projects together since the late-80s).

Are there any events that truly stand out as being something really special? I think I might have answered this previously, but it does give me the opportunity to talk about other events! I was invited to paint murals in Greece as part of the Cultural Olympiad in 2002. I spent a bit of time there, travelling and painting all over Greece with the person who came up with the concept, Woozy, and a team of artists, including Stelios Faitakis (Greece), Impe (Greece), Daniel Codeak (Hong Kong), Daniel Besok (Germany), Nina (Brazil) and Os Gemeos (Brazil). We free-styled murals in Athens, Volos, Kalamata, Patra and Chania, and taught local kids how to use spraypaint in workshops. It was painting everyday, and often at night we would find spots to do our thing for ourselves. In 2016, I was invited by Urban Forms to make a work in Lodz, Poland. The location of the work was Baluty, or otherwise known as the Jewish Ghetto in WW2.

Your first steps into the art world were in a very different time, can you describe what you had to endure to pursue your art? Endure is a good word! I didn’t study art, I made it, it was trial and error, incremental circles of repetition and improvement with quantum leaps for concepts, so while I still feel that I can experiment and, at times need to fail in order to improve, that isn’t always the way it is perceived. This is where needing to endure criticism or opinions comes in. You need a thick skin and to ignore the haters, just keep making. I was fortunate to have Melissa always in my corner, always propping me up when I needed it and encouraging me. She is the reason I have done so much and am able to continue. We all need our own team – sometimes more often than we know!

 What would you say to anyone starting out today? So much, but it would need to be tailored to the individual. But the short version is be prolific and if people are telling you not to quit your day job, but that is not in your heart, then go with your heart. It is your passion that will carry you, not other people’s opinions.

And those wanting to take their art further, as you have, to reach the success you have attained? I always made art, from when I was a kid, no matter what I had to do to pay the rent it was always my obsession & it was about being true to myself & for me this is important success has many definitions, different to everybody so define it yourself & focus on that, don’t follow trends.

You call yourself a street and visual artist – how do the two differ? Do they really differ these days? Mostly I call myself a painter, although I’m less concerned about titled nowadays, street art, graffiti, visual art they are all for me & other people will have differing opinions on this & that’s ok to, but I always drew on things, I don’t really change the things I use, the mediums are the same for wall/canvas/found objects etc.

Who are the people you are currently watching as leaders, innovators and even disruptors in the street art scene? Other friends like Gonzalo Borondo, Fabio Tellas, & the monumental sculptural works of Edoardo Tresoldio really inspire me. Jordan Seiler is doing amazing projects with connection & communication, his anti-advertising work in NYC has reshaped my thoughts on public space.

Lastly, if you could go back time to the first time you stepped out into the night with a spray can, what would you say to yourself? Don’t be so scared, don’t listen to those that have ‘made up the rules’. Don’t try to fit in.