Graffitti Artist/Carver
Born 8 September 1971 in England to New Zealander parents of Maori, Japanese, Scottish and Welsh ancestry. Lived in Nigeria,Beirut,Dubai,Singapore,Indonesia,New Zealand before immigrating to Australia in 1984.Involvement in Hip Hop began in 1983 with breakdancing but Prins soon took up graffiti and so began a long career in the Australian graffiti scene. Prins quickly built up a reputation for himself as a graffiti writer with a lot of different styles and who got up a lot(getting up means having your name written on as many trains and public places as possible) The early years were spent along with a lot of his peers tagging trains and painting illegally but after numerous run ins with the law decided that he wanted to pursue his love and passion for the artform without getting charged by the police for it. That was about the time Prins took up airbrushing.Since 1990 He has produced a wide variety of airbrushed canvasses,motorbikes,murals and T shirts having spent a while selling airbrushed T shirts at various markets around Sydney and Canberra.
Prins worked for an Airbrushing school in Sydney for about 2 years in the mid 90’s where a few of his skills were honed while producing murals for various businesses around Sydney including the Pepsi factory in Western Sydney.
1996 was the time Prins took his long time interest with woodcarving to the next level and began carving for himself. With his traditional Maori and Celtic influences, woodcarvings are a logical extension of his work. A good wildstyle looks fresh on a wall or a train, but seeing it carved in wood adds another dimension completely, it seems like the letters have been infused with a life of their own.
His talent in this area has been recognised to the tune of a $30,000 Arts Council grant for him to work with wood carvers in New Zealand. These carvings are a lot more time consuming than your average piece or even a canvass. Prins plans them out on paper then painstakingly carves each letter out of the wood and brings it to life. Further dimensions are added to them by the application of paint.
It looks like graffiti, but there’s something else to these pieces of art. “ Each piece has it’s own identity for sure. It’s not just that they say different things, but each piece of wood is different, the grain is different, the letters are shown up in different ways.”
Examples of Prins’ work can be seen at www.thecrazyprins.com
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