Man Of Sunshine

I had the chance to catch up with Dean Sunshine and ask him a few questions. Dean has been running about taking photos for as long as I've been painting on the streets. I remember how passionate and quick he was with getting all the new street art that was appearing on a daily basis not to mention documenting all the gallery exhibitions, sounds like a full-time job yeah, well he has one of them too.

                                               Artist - Makatron kama Sutra burger

1. Were you born and raised in Melbourne?

Yes I was born and raised here all my life with a few short stints living in New York and Mexico.

2. You’ve been taking photos of street art/graffiti /murals for years now, when and how did you get into it all?

I received a basketball backboard painted by legendary Melbourne graffiti writer MERDA in 1987 for my 21st birthday – it was my first piece of aerosol art and one that I still look at every single day. Later in my work routine in the rag trade, I found myself driving around the inner suburbs of Melbourne and often seeing graffiti which I started taking photos of. In the mid 90’s a client that was buying fabric off us asked if he and some mates could paint the back of our warehouse. I said yep of course and that started one of Melbourne’s long standing graffiti walls which came down just a few weeks ago. After taking pics for ages, my partner suggested I start a blog to share the countless images I had backed up on a hard drive. In 2010 Land of Sunshine began and soon after I started meeting artists at shows and I offered my factory walls in Brunswick which is now known as Sunshine Lane. Over the years we have had numerous local and international artists leave their gifts of art on those walls.

 Artists -  Adnate, Kaffine

3. Over the time you spent taking photos have you noticed any changes in the art scene? If so what has changed? 

Absolutely – Originally, it was predominantly graffiti on the streets. I remember a period of time when stencils were hugely popular, and then a period when paste-ups were everywhere. Now I see a lot more aerosol art on the streets both in the forms of graffiti and street art, and more large scale bigger commissioned murals and productions for commercial businesses. I have also seen quite a shift from street to gallery which so many artists crossing over…..

4. So you’ve being doing some traveling over the last couple of years taking photos, did you travel to certain places to take photos or was it more of a holiday with the opportunity to take some cool pictures?

Over the last decade I have been fortunate to have travelled through Europe, USA, South America, Mexico, Bali, Thailand and more recently Tokyo. I never plan a trip around taking photos but always seem to end up snapping as much as I see!

                        Artist -  23rd key

                                       

                        Artist - Findac

5. Did you bring back any cool stories from your travels?

I think for me the best thing about my involvement with street art and travelling the world has been meeting like-minded people that have been so generous taking me around, saving me loads of time and keeping me safe. There is nothing I enjoy more than taking international visitors around my fave spots in Melbourne. Highlights for me have been showing Martha Cooper, Henry Chalfant and Futura around our streets and it seems the favour has certainly come back to me

In Mexico City, there are loads of areas that are really not safe at all, and where some great art can be found on walls. I met up with Soylo who took a whole day to drive me around, into some seriously dodgy spots that I would never have found spotting ROA, Jaz, Saner and Curiot just to name a few. While the pics don't show it, there was danger lurking around...
http://deansunshine.com/the-soylo-tour-of-mexico-city/

In Tokyo, I met up with Jin who took me to amazing spots that I would never have found in my short time there. Original small Keith Haring sketches by marker on a wall in a car park under an apartment building, the only Banksy rat stencil in the city. Without his help, I would never have seen what I did..
http://deansunshine.com/tokyo-street-art-june-2016/

In Berlin, George and ex Melbourne gal, totally took care of me and ran me around the city for a day...
http://deansunshine.com/berlin-big-thanks-george/

In New York, Henry Chalfant took me everywhere, to Bushwick, to the Tats Cru studios and all over the Bronx somewhere I had never been before.

Wayne from the LISA Project took me through all the murals they had arranged as well as giving me access to watch and document 80's graffiti legends Crash and Daze paint a large mural.

Artist - Slicer

6. You have released two street art books; can you tell me a bit about the process of putting a book together? And do you have any plans of releasing more books?

I first produced a book for my partner through Blurb documenting a trip we did in 2009 and fell in love with the process. I realised there was some thing missing in the representation of Melbourne street art scene as a whole in print. Back then, there was the Uncommissioned Art – an A-Z of Australian graffiti (2007), Kings Way (2009), Street Studio (2010), Everfresh Blackbook (2010), Stencil Graffiti Capital Melbourne (2011) and – all awesome books but in my mind not fully representing the scene as a whole… So I thought I have thousands of pics, surely I could put something together? It took me a few months to come up with a concept, something that differed from what was already out there, and collate the right images.
                                                                                   
                                               Artist - Mr. Never Satisfied

Five Quick Questions: 

1. Early night or late night?  Early morning. 

2. Melbourne Bitter or Coppers? Melbourne Bitter (although preferably VB) 

3. Tags or no tags? Tags. 

4. Style Wars or Exit Thought The Gift Shop? Style wars (for without it, we would have nothing) 

5. North side or South side? I have always existed equally in both

Just As We Are

Suki & I were offered a space for 29 days as a studio to create a pop up exhibition. In our time there in between making works for the show we thought it would be fun to interview each other.

Be Free - So Suki when did you start doing art on the streets and how did you get into print making?

Suki - I’ve been pasting on the streets for about 6 years. I’ve always had a love for print making and was first introduced to it in primary school though I didn’t really explore it much until later. I definitely have a soft spot for relief printing and I love the magic of inking the block and pulling back the paper to reveal the print.

Be Free - Last year was a big year for you with a couple of solo shows as well as painting in New Zealand, Tell me a little bit about all it all? 

Suki - Yeah, last year was pretty big, in April I was asked to come and paint a wall in Dunedin, they’ve got an excellent little crew their raising money and organising artists from all over the world to come and paint walls. I’m pretty stoked to be among artists like Phlegm, Pixel Pancho, Be Free, Dal East and Hyuro who have also painted there, Nespoon is over there painting now which is pretty exciting.

I had my first solo show Wild Bhumi in June (2015) and I took the show on the road to Brisbane later in the year. It was mostly printmaking based but I also did a bit of painting, and installations using crochet and twine. I also made my first series of hand bound books and now I’m kind of addicted to book binding.

Be Free - I see that you make clothes for yourself, how long have you being doing that?

Suki - I’ve kind of always been into making clothes, I guess that comes with having a dress maker for a mum. I’m interested in sustainable fashion and making one off works of wearable art that are also practical for everyday wear. I like to use fabric remnants, things I find in op-shops and organic fabric. I work under the name Sayuri Mei and have been sharing a few things I’ve made on my blog.

Be Free - What do you think is your biggest influence is in your art and why you do what you do?

Suki - Being surrounded by so many amazing and creative people really helps. Art has always been a part of my life in a big way, embracing that innate need to create and express myself has always been supported by the people in my life which has definitely made it easier to bring my wild ideas to fruition.

Be Free - Have you any other projects coming up?

Suki - I have a show in Newcastle later this year with Tom Civil and Lu Quade as well as a couple of group shows. I’m also really keen to do a bunch of pasting on the streets. Plus with the prospect of cooler weather I’m super excited about picking up my knitting needles and designing some more clothes.

Quick Qs:

       1.  How long are your dreads?

Hang on… [picture me holding a meter ruler to my head haha]…  60cm

      2. What’s your favourite TV series that you’re watching at the moment?

MacGyver (don’t judge me)

       3. Your most excellent food?

Avocado on toast.

       4. Ever being spotted by the police while pasting?

Yeah, they were cool, just had to take my details but because there was no complaint from the owner there was nothing they could do.

       5. Best Book?

      An empty sketch book waiting to be filled. 

Suki - Other than your shenanigans in the street what are your favourite things to do?

Be Be Free - Hmm I do spend a lot of time on the streets but I guess I like to spend time with my family, catch up with friends and drink beer, skateboard and play bass guitar in my band.

Suki - Tell me about the time you fell through a roof.

Be Free - Ok, so the night started off watching some bands and drinking a few beers with a good friend of mine, then we headed out for a bit of a paint. We were walking down the back alleys in Fitzroy and climbing up onto roof tops. There was this one roof top that had a bunch of skylights, I remember saying to my friend “watch your step there are some skylights “ and before I knew it I had fallen through a skylight, hanging from my arms and dangling with a story and half drop under me. Somehow I scampered up, my friend had just watched all of this but it happen all so quickly. Then we sat together and just laughed for about a half an hour and then climbed down.  

Suki - Other than the obvious statement, tell me about your name.

Be Free - Be Free as my name is a constant reminder to be happy in life, be able to let things go and stay young at heart.

Suki - Some of your paste ups are epically huge, how difficult are they to put up and do you design pieces for specific walls or do you just make pieces and hope to find a wall that it will fit on?

Be Free - Yeah they seem to be getting bigger. It’s all about the shape of the image to how hard it is to paste, so I think about that a bit when I’m planning a big one. Sometimes I have a spot first but not all the time. I’ve planned a paste up for a spot before and by the time I’d finished it the spot was taken and had to find it a new home for it, so you can’t always plan things to a tee.     

      Suki - Why art?

Be Free - I’m not sure, if wasn’t art it would be something else like skateboarding or surfing or music, something creative. I need that thing in my life where I can focus on that one thing for a long time, the rest of the time I’m just a scatterbrain.

 Quick Qs:

1. The Goonies or Turbo Kid? 

      How dare you ask that but have to go with the Goonies!

      2. Favourite Doco? 

      Beautiful Losers

      3. A cool band you’ve been listening to? 

      A sick little local band, Foley.

      4.  Favourite snack? 

      In Japan I was eating a heap of chicken niblets just ask Jimmy about it (That’s crazy because I’m a vego) but best all time snack combo is a banana with a Jolt cola, don’t knock it till you have tried it!

      5. What place would you most like to travel to? 

      Detroit 

The Girl on the Swing

Back in 2011 I had a friend who was living in a squat in Northcote, it was an awesome warehouse. This place had about 5 warehouses joined to each other and they were massive, plus there was an office and a kitchen, with running water and electricity. The kitchen had everything you needed, a fridge, toaster oven and a kettle, this place was called the Gadd st warehouse.

Ok so the story goes something like this...

One of the guys who found this warehouse jumped the fence and found a way in. In the office on the table were 3 things. The first thing was a box with letters, invoices a bunch of stuff about what this place was used for; it was a leather shoe factory. The second thing was a computer that worked and the third thing was the keys to the front door, also keys for the warehouse over the road. Pretty cool, so yeah a small crew moved in and that's how I came to do this painting...

Photo by Darcy Gladwin

This one was in Northcote.

An old handy cam video from 2011 of the above photo...

A couple more photo's...

Collingwood

Adelaide. On the side of one of the best pubs ever The Grace Emily.

This is where it all started...

I’m not sure exactly how I got into street art but I remember hanging out with one of my friends in Adelaide and he showed me a bunch of local stencils and paste ups on the net. I remember thinking it would be really cool to add and be a part of that culture. At that time I was working on my first animation for a music film clip, 2 years later and I never ended up finishing it but I did start doing art on the streets of Melbourne.

My first piece was in Sep 2010 in North Fitzroy for my Sister’s birthday, it took forever. I had no Idea what I was doing,  my spray paint was the 3 dollar special from the hardware store and trying to glue cards on the wall with PVA plus freak’n out with every car and person that passed by but I got it done. 

Fitzroy around that time was awesome for street art and Graffiti, it seemed like heaps of people were doing it, there were still a lot of old pieces up from the early 2000’s. So walking around Fitzroy and the CBD was really inspirational.

 I loved this wall it had some really cool paste ups on it, I found a little spot…

This was on Rose St in Fitzroy, it was my second piece.

This next one was in Northcote… 

My 3^rd piece was really the first one I ever drew up but didn’t put it out into the streets till later. It was a picture of my bestest buddy Suki.

Clifton Hill

Adelaide