INTERVIEW WITH WILD DRAWING
Our interviewee of the day is the Indonesian artist Wild Drawing! WD collaborated with Rotterdam Street Art Museum at the very beginning of the project, being, in fact, the first official production linked to our open-air museum. The mural placed at the intersection of Coolsestraat and West-Kruiskade prompted a few questions for the artist, while he tells us more about his overall oeuvre, especially his painting methods and chosen subjects for his artworks.
Wild Drawing has academic training in Fine Arts and Applied Arts, completing his degrees in Bali. Currently living in Greece, the artist keeps exploring different artistic techniques, being mostly known for his three-dimensional murals. The way he connects his designs to the surrounding space, incorporating the architecture and other real elements into his fantastic compositions, is really what makes his murals reach another level.
Cláudia Freitas: You have one of the murals that stands out the most in our RSAM collection, due to its very varied and eye-catching color palette; I also perceive that vibrant colors are a constant in your work in general. Can you tell me more about your use of color?
Wild Drawing: Blue and turquoise are actually my favorite colours, you can find them in many of my works. These colours bring a calmness and elegance, but I always try to create some contrast from the dominant blue and turquoise by using, for example, yellow or orange in some parts of my work. In this Helixotherapy mural, I used the yellow and orange colours on the inner part of the spiral, which also emphasize the 3D effect.
CF: I believe that the beginning of your involvement in the artistic world is very much linked to stencil and paste-up techniques. Can you explain to me more about how you got involved with making street art?
WD: I actually started with murals, when I was living in Bali. Later when I moved to Greece, I knew nothing about the Athenian street art scene and how things work, so I decided to start with something quick and safe. That’s how I ended up with the stencils and paste-ups.
CF: Could you provide further information about the subjects explored in your murals?
WD: I get a lot of inspiration from everyday life, social phenomena, art or nature so these themes often appear in my work. On the other hand, I like to visualize them through a poetic, dreamlike style that sometimes comes quite close to fantastic art.
CF: How were you invited for this project and what do you think of being included in this Rotterdam Street Art Museum collection?
WD: The guys saw my work, they liked it and invited me to paint something for RSAM. I remember back in 2017, I had a great time during the project and also had the pleasure to create a mural for the people living in or visiting Rotterdam.
CF: I know that the mural you made here is inspired by the artist Escher. Besides this inspiration, what else motivated the conception of this work? What is the meaning of Helixotherapy?
WD: The helix (or spiral) is a symbol of resilience and is found throughout nature. We find the helix in galaxies, in weather patterns and in every living organism’s DNA. Sunflowers, vine tendrils, even our fingerprints all have the helix as their underlying structure.
CF: In the process of making your artwork in Rotterdam, you chose to hide your identity and cover your face. Can you tell me more about the reason for this?
WD: It’s just a matter of privacy, for me the important thing is to share my work with the people, not my face.
CF: How do you create the impressive 3D effect in your murals, especially when you incorporate surfaces that are not on the same plane? And how do you ensure that they provide a captivating visual experience from a specific viewpoint?
WD: For me a mural is not just to put my painting on the wall, but how to involve various elements that exist on/around the spot I’m working. Be it land or road, sky or trees, windows or pipes, all of them can embrace each other into a work of art. I usually start by creating the background illusionary part of the space and after that, I continue with the main object of the mural. There is nothing particularly special about making 3D murals, except working through all the elements that already exist, adding some imagination. And one more thing: spatial ability and perspective knowledge must be strong, because the key to an illusionary image is all in perspective.
