By Alice
19th October 2017
Xenz is living proof that the big names in street art don’t always come from big street art cities. Born from the industrious and somewhat grey Hull, a thirteen year old Xenz took his inspiration not from his landscape, but from what he imagined his landscape to be. Quickly, the bare and unused walls of his hometown became transformed by what were then kids with spray cans from the local garage, and are now renowned street artists, such as Xenz and Paris. Having quickly become disillusioned with the conventional ‘Hip Hop’ graffiti style his cohorts imitated from their American counterparts, Xenz broke the mould and began to create more painterly, abstract pieces inspired by his love of nature and fascination with birds.
The Birds and the Bees with Xenz's Process
Since leaving his hometown over twenty years ago, he studied textile design at Edinburgh College of Art, lived and worked in Bristol alongside some of the UK’s most respected graffiti crews and artists, such as TCF, Banksy, Inkie and countless others. Although he has worked with some huge names, his style still remains individual, and extremely unconventional in regards to traditional graffiti motifs. Xenz finds the beauty in the journey of the paint, and it is the mistakes and temporality of the material that creates the final piece, rather than the bright, defined and dynamic lines one might find in other graffiti works. Xenz has exhibited internationally, from Barcelona, to Sydney and Chicago.
