Atlanta's prolific graffiti-style writer VAYNE discusses anonymity and debut solo art exhibition
For some artists, Atlanta is a giant canvas. And that seems to be true for VAYNE, one of our city’s most notorious, admiree and internationally recognized graffiti-style writers. You’ve likely seen his name in huge block letters, sprayed or paint-rolled on some of Atlanta’s seemingly impossible-to-reach billboards and overpasses.
“All Over the Place” is the first-ever solo exhibition of VAYNE’s art, and it opens Cat Eye Creative on Nov. 9. VAYNE joined managing producer Kim Drobes on “City Lights” to discuss the lifestyle of an anonymous icon.
VAYNE’s identity was masked for the interview, his voice distorted and pitch-shifted, at the artist’s request.
“For me, graffiti is magical, and it has a bunch of mystique to it,” he explained of his request to stay difficult to identify. “When I think of … other graffiti artists that have done big things before me or people that I’ve looked up to, [I used to] want to know who they are, what kind of person they are and stuff like that … But once you kind of figure out those things about them, the magic is kind of lost.”
The other, more obvious reason for staying anonymous is, of course, “because some people can look at what I do as just a criminal act.”
VAYNE attributes his ability to find good tagging spots to his history as a skateboarder, always on the hunt for new rails to slide or steps to jump.
“When I got into graffiti, it all clicked,” he said. “I was like, oh, I can free climb up this, I can climb this wire, I can jump to this pole, I can throw my bag up, I can paint this spot. And it’s almost a spot that nobody ever sees until it’s painted. But once it’s painted, it all makes sense. And everybody kind of looks at it the same way I do after I paint it, like ‘that belongs there’… At least my fans do.”
Details about VAYNE’s new solo exhibition can be found at Cat Eye Creative’s website.
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