You have been certified
SF have had the pleasure of knowing the id-iom boys for many years and along the way there have been some interesting sites… not least the 7am sessions on Brixton Hill with leopard print onesies and facial hair. This interview gets a little closer to the brothers of paint as they answer questions at their Haus of Pain-t
Twin paints
Firstly when is the house there till? and can anyone come and have a look around?
Sholto: The house is probably going to be around for another week or two but we’ve no final date at the moment. We’d love to have people round but i’m not entirely sure how an open house would work out
Hugo: Just the other day a part of one of the rooms in the attic fell down. I’m not talking about a whole collapse here where we can see the clouds in the sky but just a little bit of the plaster. I hate what i’m going to say next but we have to think about health and safety, not ours of course but to others we invite around.
Skull fuct
How you feeling that all the pieces will be rubble in the near future?
S: Like any bit of art done on the street it’s not going to last forever so I don’t really mind that it’s going to disappear some time pretty soon. In fact it’s quite liberating to know that it’s so ephemeral and will only be around for such a short time. I would however love to see the looks on the faces of the demolition crew when they have a poke around…
H: It doesn’t bother me at all. As we paint on the street as well we had to get to grips with our work being buffed after we’ve finished it. I think the quickest time has been about 5 hours before it was buffed, that only annoyed me because we hadn’t taken a photo of it yet, so we had to learn the hard way with that one.
How did you get this space?
S: We have had our studio in the basement for the past 18 months and when the tenants moved out we had the place to ourselves and so asked the developer if he’d mind if we painted the place up. He’s a fan of street art so he readily agreed and that was that
Curly suit
What is the theme you have gone for throughout?
S: We don’t really have a theme for the whole place. We just started off painting whatever we wanted and went from there.
H: What did happen though was that when we started in a particular room slowly something would jump out at us and we’d take it from there.
S: Then once we’d got a couple of walls done in any one room we would then try to come up with a way to tie it all together.
Just sign here
Where do you take your inspiration from?
S: Everywhere and anywhere really! Books, tv, music, the internet, something you hear in the pub, something you hear on the bus, the things you see whilst on the tube. its not really a conscious thing, you take everything in and see what comes out the other end. Its also good that we are a duo because i can be talking about something that i have seen to the other half of id-iom and then he’ll say something that will spark me off or vice versa
Blowing a bird
What’s with the hand grenade bird?
S: Well, living in London it’s hard to ignore the pigeons that are constantly hanging around looking shifty with their scruffy wings and malformed feet. They are particularly numerous around the city centre and obviously flock around you whenever you produce something to eat. Well now we have the answer. Pigeon Grenades! Safe to use – even in an urban environment. They will blow those suckers right out of the sky with a minimum of collateral damage. Get them now whilst the good prices last. Email Mark for details…
I first came across Mark Aburi when he sent me an email promising a sizeable share of several million dollars if only i’d help him shift it out of Africa. Since then I’ve decided to do my best to make sure he gets some emails – although they probably aren’t quite the emails he was hoping for. Welcome to id-iom’s continued attempt at artistic scam-baiting. You can view our earlier efforts here, here and here.
Please feel free to get in touch with Mark (at aburimar777@gmail.com) about Pigeon Grenades, any of our earlier efforts or just about any topic at all as he’s happy to help on any issue – from the mundane to the world-shatteringly important. Just drop him a line…
A few of your pieces are self portraits with a twist…. are you trying to tell us something dark about yourselves?
S: I hope not – unless Hugo has some secret agenda. It’s probably more just that we are always available for our own modeling assignments…
H: if i could i would love to use other people but the muse doesn’t wait around that long and we’d probably get bored waiting as well.
You are Brixton based…. If you could re-paint something in Brixton without fear of arrest what would it be?
H: There are a few places i’d like to paint but the one that i suppose is the most ambitious is the side of a 4 story house on josephine avenue. Since i’ve lived in Brixton it has been there with out a lick of paint and just asking for it.
Do you go to many other artist’s exhibitions and which ones would you recommend?
S: We can often be found in the East End on a Thursday night having a look around at whatever new exhibitions are on and quaffing whatever free drink can be found. It’s always good to check out the competition. I think we are happy to go to just about anything as you never know what you’re going to get until you check it out.
Guns don’t kill people….
What’s next for you guys then?
S: Well, we’ll be working on the house right up to demolition then it will be all change as we’ll have to move our studio out of the basement and find somewhere new. Other than that it’s finding more work and taking id-iom to bigger and better places
You are also into your music…. what would your prefer…. be deaf or blind?
S: That’s a tricky and fairly sinister question. I think I’d have to be deaf although it would be a difficult choice.
H: Deaf for sure!! No question!! You can teach yourself to lipread and you can still feel the bass if you went out to a club.
standardfact 