Street Art Melbourne - I & The Others

Any self-respecting Melburnian will at some point find themselves wandering through our tangled web of alleyways and laneways in search of a street art fix.Whether we are tracking down what’s left of our Banksy stencils or appreciating local paste-up artists like Miso and Ghost Patrol – many of us end up Instagramming the hell outta the stuff. Now for someone like me, who is a total paper nerd with a penchant for papercuts, imagine my glee when I see a papercut paste-up in my hood down Centre Place. The word excited doesn’t even cut it. All crazy eyed and banshee shriek I turned to my bestie and said “But you don’t understand!!?? It’s street art AND it’s a papercut!! How can this be?? Who is responsible for such greatness??!!!” She agreed it was lovely but insisted I back away from the artwork… very, very slowly…So – fast forward a couple of months and I am foraging Etsy for local Melbourne paper artists and I come across I & The Others… beautiful illustrations, origami star magnets and what’s this…. PASTE-UP PAPERCUT FLOATING CITIES?? I’d found the artist responsible for taking my street art appreciation to a whole other level with a papercut! At the risk of sounding a bit like a crazed fan I sent through an Etsy convo and gushed about how much I loved the piece and was pleasantly surprised to hear back from Kirrily – the talented lass behind it all. We agreed to catch up over a warm cup of coffee one cloudy Sunday afternoon at her Collingwood studio. Here’s what we discussed:

So tell me a bit about yourself and your work…Since I was a kid I’ve always loved found objects and I guess I’m a bit of a hoarder – I really like the idea of finding something on the street or an op shop or sometimes even it’s even stuff friends find from cleaning out their sheds – they’ll bring me all these bits of wood and say “I thought of you!”I grew up on a farm and there was an old farmhouse and an old worker’s hut on the property and I loved it! I loved going into these old spaces and finding things that other people had left behind. In one of the houses I found this little tin of tiger balm and it was so old and I was just fascinated with it – all the really small stuff that just gets left behind but it’s like treasure for a 7 or 8-year-old –

sounds like it might still be treasure for you! I know I haven’t really moved on have I…More recently I’ve liked drawing on nice fine art paper – but at the same time I like drawing on brown kraft paper and then pasting it onto found objects such as wooden doors or windows. For me it’s really important to have a connection between the work that I do on the street and the work that I have in the gallery – I don’t like them to be two separate things in terms of artistic style, which means that sometimes my stuff for the gallery can be a little bit more rustic and sometimes my stuff for the street can be quite elaborate and time consuming.

I read on your blog about the artwork with the crows and the red string and cotton spools – it looked amazing! Can you tell me a bit about that? Yep that’s in an abandoned building on Johnson street – it’s open and a lot of artists go in there and paint the walls.  That was a collaboration with Klara and we went in there and neither of us had been in there before and were blown away by all the cotton and string that was all over the ground – the place was filled with all different colours and sizes and we were like “Gah!! Where do we start?”So we found a wall and decided instead of just painting on the wall we should use all the amazing material to make a piece that was a bit more installation based.  So we climbed up, strung up bits of cotton and connected it to the crow so it would appear to be hanging.

Wow – an abandoned cotton factory? How cool! Yeah I’m not sure how long it’s been abandoned for but about 12 months ago there was also a fire which made it worse – or better for some people like us who got an amazingly beautiful textured wall! So yeah, it was a space we felt really inspired by and spent a whole rainy day in there.

Does it ever kind of freak you out going into these abandoned spaces? Like what am I going to see in there or OHS issues? Um a little bit but I’m more fascinated by the spaces.

I love that I think it’s really cool – looking at all your work you’re not just a fine art illustrator or a street artist doing paste-ups or papercut you kind of go across a different range of genres and mediums…I like to mix it up! I’ve been a graphic designer for 12 years and I’ve been a practicing artist for the last 4-5 years.

So this is full time for you now? Pretty much. I will take on almost any job in the realm of art! Recently I’ve been involved in workshops with kids and community projects – so all sorts of creative things.

Are you formally trained or self-taught? After high school I completed a diploma in graphic art and soon after got a job as a graphic designer.  After a while I found it wasn’t as creative as I what I’d hoped but didn’t know where to take it from there. So I travelled overseas for a bit and when I came back got back into graphic design and just sort of moseyed on for a while until I got to the point where I started being a bit more creative with things like digital artwork.It’s been a process and a kind of evolution to get to the point where I’m not really using the computer in my art work at all – except for some of the papercuts where I’ll use the computer to design some of the shapes and more intricate stuff – but mostly all my illustration is by hand.

So what kind of materials do you use? I’ve been using a bamboo paper and copic ink – the pens are really fine tipped pens. I’ve learnt over time to invest in good pens and good paper but there is always going to be an element of using regular paper like brown kraft for paste-ups and any paper with ageing or stains always attracts me..Sometimes I stain the paper myself first with coffee and watercolour before I draw on it. For a while I was obsessed with going into op shops and finding the cheapest and oldest books I could all for the sake of 4 or 5 pages that I might use in them! I now have quite a collection of old books with missing pages.

The name I & The Others – where did it come from and what is the significance? It was back in the day when everyone was using Myspace – and all these people had great and creative names and I didn’t want to just use Kirrily.  So I opened up a book and closed my eyes and pointed to the page and looked down and saw it said “I & the Others”It might not have stuck as a name if I hadn’t liked it and it hadn’t been so appropriate. But at the time I was really figuring out my own style and what I wanted to be doing in my artwork and I had a lot of different influences – like any artist does – so I felt that through that name I could subtly give credit to those who had influenced me.And now I feel like I do have my own distinct style but the Others still comes into it with the pasting up on the street when my mates help out, co-curating 2 shows this year one in Toronto showcasing Australian paste-up artists. That one will be an outdoor exhibition – so we’re taking work by about 25 artists and pasting them up around the streets and then doing a bike tour around Toronto.

So how do you get to that point? Do you have to have street cred? Years ago there was a great Ghost Patrol paste-up on a building on the corner of Brunswick street and Victoria parade and on my way to work the tram would stop at that intersection and I would get to look at it every day.I was always thought it was such a great piece of art and it was just there for everyone to appreciate and that really inspired me. When I was in the States I discovered an artist called Swoon – who does amazing paper cutouts and very elaborate paste-ups - and was inspired by her work and also MISO who back then was doing a lot of work around the streets of Melbourne. These kinds of paste-ups really inspired me and I just wanted to give it a go.  So I Googled how to make wheat paste and just went out there and did it!

Does the anonymity bother you with your street art? I guess when I first started doing it I didn’t put my name anything ‘cause I wanted to see how I felt about it and I wasn’t even sure I would like seeing my artwork on the street!But I found it really rewarding and it was nice to add something to the urban landscape. At the same time I don’t feel like I need or want recognition for it – I just want to do it and enjoy it and be part of what is going on in terms of the street art culture.Maybe it’s also a bit of a challenge to see how long before people recognize that it is my work. And now there’s such a great community of artists in Melbourne that for anyone who’s put up more than a handful of paste-ups people find out who they are and photos go around and everyone starts to know who’s who meaning there’s a community of people who recognize your stuff so that’s kinda nice.

Have you had work come through because of paste-ups? Yes when I started out had a commissioned piece for Dimitri’s Feast in Richmond – that was the first paid paste-up job I did, which was nice. Since then I’ve done murals in cafes and did a paste-up as part of a festival in Ilhan Lane in Brunswick with Tinning Street gallery.  I got an outdoor alcove space for an installation and it was nice to know that the owner of the building wanted it there!

Any close calls with the feds? Yeah the second time I ever went out pasting we pulled over on Gertrude street and the police came up to us and asked what we were doing, checked our details etc. but they didn’t say anything. I think they’re pretty lenient and I am always respectful of the spaces I choose. Often I try and find spaces that already have graffiti or tagging so that if I can put something more beautiful over the top it might be appreciated.

How do you feel about the fact that your work isn’t permanent and open to the elements or vandals? I actually don’t mind it – I like that (the artwork) disintegrates and although I’m not a huge fan of the vandalism it’s part of it and it is still the public interacting with it.If I don’t have time to document it before it gets ruined that can be annoying but overall I don’t mind – as soon as it’s up I’m already kinda sick of it! I don’t have any attachment to anything I put on the street.

What are your thoughts on the Melbourne street art community? I feel like it’s quite a small community and some artists do like to remain anonymous whereas others are more open. But as I get to know people more, I find there is more scope for collaboration and everyone wants to be part of everyone else’s experience.I’ve collaborated with Klara before – mucking around in abandoned spaces. She’s a great explorer who knows lots of great spaces around the city.I’m planning to do a show with a projection artist – so that will be more of an installation based project.

Future goals – I’m excited about the upcoming Toronto show, I can’t wait to be pasting again after not doing anything on the street over the winter. Representation by an overseas gallery with an international solo show would be amazing as well as being able to do more street art overseas. I guess my main goal is just to keep doing what I love.

How long do your pieces take on average? The last two paste-ups I’ve done have been quite big – 1 week for a piece that was 3metres high – I’m such an art nerd - that was my summer holiday! It was hand drawn and I spent 5 days cutting and drawing and it had 3 layers of cut paper.  Same with the Ilhan Lane piece in Brunswick.The floating cities papercut paste-ups – which had their first showing on High Street Northcote as part of Northern Exposure in 2011 – take me about an hour and a half to complete.

Do you have any papercut artists you admire?

I love the paper installations Swoon does – amazingly inspiring and on a huge scale so she has a team of people to help. Whenever I see cut paper that’s really intricate I’m always interested.

Best piece of advice for artists out there? ‘Do what you love and the money will come’ is a phrase I kinda live by.   For me, the most important thing in my life is doing what I love and spending my days doing something that makes me happy. I feel very, very fortunate to have found what I love and to be doing it because some people never find it.I’m always very grateful for that.

Who should we be listening to be as creative and cool as you? Ha! I listen to so much stuff and I love making playlists! I have playlists for all kinds of moods and situations – even a  paste-up making playlist!Lately I’ve been listening to Bowie a lot, Rolling Stones, some blues music, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty but also lots of newer stuff like Catcall, Haim, Sweet Serenades and XX – whose last album was on high rotation for quite a while.  I love finding new music – usually via YouTube or Facebook, I’m a bit of a Shazamer aswell.I always create with music. I’m not much for silence.

Is there a time you feel the most creative and free? Yeah I guess I’m most creative and on a bit of a roll in the evening. Especially in summer – I’m not a huge fan of winter!

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