D*FACE
In August 2022, D*FACE, a leading British street artist, had his first solo exhibition at Space Fountain, Seoul.
Fashion magazine Elle has interviewed with D*FACE, where you can get a perspective on his works.
Q. Can you introduce us the works for this exhibition?
You can see the evolution of the D*DOG, a character I have drawn up over 20 years. For me, it was always meant to be that Disney’s dysfunctional character. This is placed with an animation, and the content of it is exactly what I wanted to create. So the animation here is super significant to me because it was almost like what I dreamed of over 20 years ago. And downstairs, there is a continuation of romance topics, which is prevalent of my work. Just continuing that dialogue, I wanted to show what things like love, loss and what that means to me and what that means to the public.
Q. <Strange Love> reminds us of the love of today. As an artist who has been creating works about romance, how do you think the love of our time is changing and which part of that do you think is the most strange and unfamiliar?
Romance is the thing that can unite all of us, and it's still something I want to experiment with. I started working on love while going through a very difficult time. There was a personal reason too. I think I'm old enough to look at the phenomenon of love from a distance. In my parents' generation, if you wanted to meet someone, you had to physically go anywhere to meet them and court them eagerly. There was one marriage in one life. But I think we live about five of those lives now. I got divorced once, but I hope people always strive for love. I hope that love that is consumed too quickly, finding love through a dating app and meeting someone else quickly, will not become "normal".
Q. You broke down the barrier between street art and traditional art. As an urban contemporary artist, we are wondering what your drive was.
I’m doing what I love. The drive to support myself from that was more than I can imagine. Back in the day, I had a full-time job, I worked during the day and did what I wanted to do at night after work. The drive was always to try outdoing myself. What started as a small hand-drawn sticker, those hand-drawn quickly became a screen-printed sticker, which quickly became a large poster, which became a massive poster, and then painting, building mural. It’s always about me trying to outdo myself.
Q. Is there any special method or your perspective on how you work with murals?
Luckily, I've been doing it for a long time, starting back in the days when anything could be street art. I was one of the very first along with Banksy, Shepherd Fairey. On the street, we were just experimenting, there was no plan. I’ve always been fascinated with graffiti, skateboarding, album art working, graphics. All of those have influenced me to make my own style, “strong color, big black outlines”. It was always trying to stand out from the advertising and the visual pollution we are surrounded by in every city. For me, the style I’ve created is reminiscing of a past day of pop art which can be seen similar, but it’s updated for today’s society. And that “strong color, big black outlines” is a product to trying to stand out in the city.
Q. What do you think is the most important part of street art? What fascinates you?
I guess it’s addictive. When you first put things up in the street, you start realizing that people are paying attention to it or noticing it. Then you came to think about what you can do to make more people notice it. Doing it for a long, you’ll realize it’s addictive. I also think there is an appeal to me about the challenge of painting a massive wall. People may think I must like heights and I must not be scared of heights. But I also hate heights and petrified like everyone. The first time I did it, it was really scary. Nevertheless, I conquered that fear myself and kept challenging myself to see how far I can go. And when you finally step back and look at the image I’ve done, you can't help but be fascinated by it. The bigger the wall, the more impressive it is. I’m trying to keep myself fascinated and keep myself interested.
Q. You use pop art images like Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein, but you have an apocalyptic element which makes your work very different. What was the decisive moment that gave birth to D*FACE’s signature style of today?
I was always inspired by pop art from when I was a kid. My mom took me to the galleries and show me classical masterpieces, but it felt like they were irrelevant to me. But when I first got to see pop art, it hit me intuitively. When pop art first appeared, mostly it was treated critically. Then people began to admire pop art more and more. This phenomenon was interesting. The important thing for me is the pop art as meant to be a critic of popular culture and a celebration of popular culture.
Q. As an urban contemporary artist, is there any barrier you want to break?
First of all, I want to break stereotypes about things like genre and prejudice. I think in-pairing people and in-pairing the next generation is super important. Therefore, granting such freedom to children who will grow up to do anything is possible will be a big step in changing the existing perception. When I was young and asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, people often think of doctors, lawyers, and soldiers. There’s nothing wrong with those jobs but clearly, those kind of prejudices are still prevalent in society and education.
Q. The history of urban contemporary art is about 20 years. It’s not too long but not short either. But it seems that there is still prejudice about this genre of art. What kind of prejudice do you want to get rid of?
I feel like maybe it’s longer if you look up Basquiat or Haring. Given the soul in '80s spirit, I guess we are the first generation of pure, true street artists in that sense. However, even now after some time has passed, this scene itself is very male-dominated, so I hope that more female street artists will come out in the near future. The other thing is the establishment. If you want to say in the traditional sense of museums, they pay little attention to urban art, cause they think it’s almost as if it’s not serious enough. But if you think about the audience these days, the urban art show is attracting more people than ever before. I feel like that has taken a long time to shift and it still hasn’t shifted significantly.