ALEF

Millions of alien-like faces, all with different uneasy expressions, forming one whole texture, that draws you deeper into the image and keeps your eyes wandering and your mind wondering. Alef's art is a surreal trip.

Ideas in my head excite me much more than anything I've put out yet.

What was your path to becoming an illustrator? I've always drawn things I liked. As a child, I drew animals... particularly awesome animals like predatory types... sharks and stuff, and of course dinosaurs. Hell yea! Then I got into Ninja Turtles in elementary school, as I envied their lifestyle of pizza, partying and chillin' underground with rats. I used to draw the turtles fighting ninjas and would sell the pieces for a few dollars during lunch. That led to comic book obsession for a few years and then I met Hyde, when I was in Junior high, who introduced me to graffiti and funk styles... I got into that on and off for a few years... only to return to making art about 7 years ago. And I'm not so sure I'm an illustrator yet, as illustrators have way more technical skill then I can even come close to... but I'm working on it.

How do you describe your art?Trippy colorful robotic alien worlds, with a lot of tentacles in my home art, and just fun characters and semi-funky block letters in my graff stuff. Though I would love to make stuff more akin to my home stuff on public spaces, but I don't have the resources yet to pull anything like that off.

How do you choose colors in your work?I've actually been too scared to really use color in my work until very recently. Most of my older pieces were either monochromatic, or very limited in palette. Now I'm all about color. I want my shit to explode with color. We have so many beautiful colors, why not use a bunch? In terms of schemes, I tend to just bite from nature. Nature has the best color combos. Even colors you think wouldn't work together, you just open a nature book, and see some crazy flowers or butterflies and you'll be all WTF? That shit is way rad!!!

Does music inspire your work? Music is my favorite thing. If I weren't so scared to try to learn something completely new, I would totally quit painting to learn, how to play instruments. So yea, I am very inspired by music. The mood and atmospheres it can put you in. And just thinking about this question has given me ideas on how to incorporate more movement into my work. I'm also getting into production, and I want to somehow incorporate my music into my art in the future.

Do you have a favorite piece of your work? Not yet. My favorite pieces will come though. I haven't quite gotten my stuff to the point, where I'm satisfied. The ideas in my head excite me much more than anything I've put out yet. But they will come, once I get over the fear of turning these ambitious ideas into reality.

Is there a medium, that you haven't worked with and would like to try? Sculpture and installations excite me much more than painting (which I think is obsolete). I have no idea where to begin, as that sort of thing boggles my mind.

Who inspires you?Anyone who is doing something from their soul, rather than for profit. Someone who puts work into their art People who put into practice the reality of making their dreams come true by DOING. It inspires me most, when friends of mine are doing things, creating rad things and really creating their life out of nothing but love.

What tip would you give to the beginning artists? Get out of your headspace. Explore. Experiment. Read some books. Listen to some crazy music. Go outside. Look at, listen to, experience as much as you can out there, look for the cutting edge in everything. Then bring it all back inside, and let it scramble together. Then shit it back out.

What's your relationship to graffiti?My relationship to graffiti has been long and tumultuous. Sometimes she's a bitch, sometimes I'm a dick. We go through periods, where we don't see each other, but whenever we reconnect, it's like the best make up fucking ever! To me, graffiti is the rawest form of visual expression, one of the purest. It is also one of the most potentially revolutionary art forms out there, and by that I mean a very powerful way to communicate ideas to the general population, immediately and in your face, without regards to the typical bureaucratic processes, one would need to wade through, to do something in such a public manner.

How do the legal issues of graffiti affect you?Well... artists can get caught for defacing property, be arrested, and fined a lot of money. I don't go out and paint very often, usually because I'm too lazy and I'm old and like to sleep early. But its legal status is what shaped it into whatever beast it is now. The styles that were developed out of the need to paint quickly, and in the dark, are to me what defines traditional graffiti style, and to this day what excites me most about letters. Things that have that flow and funk. There are a lot of technical-looking graffiti pieces out there, that don't have that energy and movement, that made me fall in love with it in the first place. If drawing on public space was always legal, we'd probably have people doing still life or whatever on walls. Not that it would suck, but graff might not have happened.

• I'd like to be known for......being chill and open to any person, no matter what their background. and for feeding people.
• My wildest dream is......to go to outerspace and live in a giant spaceship colony, complete with views of the galaxy and biosphere type environments
• Big up to...my family, my gal Samantha, all of my pals, artists, musicians, and happy people everywhere.

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