SOBEKCIS (HA, 2013)

What were your first steps into graffiti?

We started getting into graffiti around 2005 by seeing some pieces and tags around the neighborhood and seeing photos of pieces that our cousin’s friends painted in Rijeka, Croatia. It was during that period that we painted our first wall in front of our house, but we didn’t really get into it till 2006/2007.

Which crew are you in? What does it mean to you?

We’re in Heavy Artillery. The crew means a lot to us because it is something that we hold in very high regards, and also, in in a way, being in a crew with so many talented writers helped us to elevate our game by constantly pushing us to reinvent ourselves.

There’s also 2013 which is not exactly a crew, it’s more of a cause but is still something we stand behind. And it’s good to have something that connects us back to Belgrade.

You became a part of Heavy Artillery; how do you see the crew?

Yes, that happened around the middle of last year in Milan. Having lived in London as a kid means that being in an English based crew has a lot of sentiment to it, and also coming from Serbia where there was not much opportunity to personally evolve as an artist, to enter such a well known crew at a young age was a great honor.

You moved to study in Vienna, did it change your graffiti perspective?

Yes, of course it did. Moving to Vienna was one of the best decisions we made over the last while.

It isn’t coincidence that pretty much as soon as we moved to Vienna everything started blowing up. When we moved we started traveling more, met lots of great people and got in to HA. And that is just the beginning. But of course we don’t think that this all happened just because we moved to Vienna, but it was a big stepping stone.

We hope things will continue to evolve at this pace and that there will be lots more great experiences gained through Graffiti. And when we think about it in a broader sense our move really helped us change as people, and to set higher and higher goals for ourselves.

If you had to compare Belgrade and Vienna’s scenes and styles? Did it change your graffiti perspective?

To be honest we cannot credit any particular scene for being a sole contributor to our development as writers. But we can say this: Belgrade was the foundation where we started and got into graffiti but it is not what pushed us to go further as a writers. Vienna was the first taste of painting in a more developed country and starting to work and think on a more global level not just local.

To answer this question more directly we can say that we have been more influenced by individuals then a city’s scene.

How do you explain the fact that Sobekcis can be seen as a whole but also as different personalities?

With Sobekcis as one name we try to illustrate the unity of two brothers working towards a same goal, but we also believe that everybody has to evolve as an individual person and artist, hence the separate tags that connect to each other both ways. Sobekcis was something that just came naturally after some time and it has been working out for us in a lot of our artistic endeavors from graffiti to design and painting.

Os Gemeos always look like one body of work, but you tend to have different names, while your styles are so connected. Any explanation?

The concept of twins in graffiti is not a new thing but it is rare. Our individual styles are very similar but in all honesty I can see a difference, if not directly in the piece, in the way it is painted. I can say our pieces differ from each other as much as we differ from each other physically and in our views. At the end of the day we are two people not one.

What are you trying to express with your pieces?

Something we always try to portray in a piece is an over all feel of aesthetic appeal and quality. As humans we react strongly to something that looks good, color wise, forms, composition, contrast, etc… We are happiest when a piece has a certain pop to it whether you’re are looking at it close up or from far away, it has to have some luring quality independent of the surroundings.

Which areas of your work do you want to develop?

Well, that changes constantly, every change in the process of doing a piece affects all the other elements enough to start their own evolution as well. At the moment we are trying to break out of all the norms and rules of graffiti but still keep the essence of graffiti. For example, we are trying to look at the outline as something different then just an “outline”, something that keeps the fill in place. The outline can be done as some kind of a surface instead of just a simple monotone line, there are honestly so many variations of doing an outline that the possibilities are endless. And this mentality can be applied to all the other elements of a piece.

Our current opinion is that people should look mostly outside of graffiti for inspiration, because that’s the only way graffiti will progress as an art form in itself.

It is good to see that a lot of writers have already started in that direction, people such as Roid, Askew, Berst, and many more…

Do you have any weak/ strong points?

As strong points we would say: choice of colors, attention to detail, achieving contrast in our work.

As for weak points, I would say sometimes looking at just the details and not the big picture, over kill…

I am always happier to hear from other people what they think are my strong points and weak points, it’s not the best to judge yourself because you don’t have such a broad view.

What does graffiti give to you that you can’t get elsewhere?

When everything else fails graffiti does not.

Graffiti gives a great sense of self meaning, whether you’re painting all day or doing a quick illegal piece, you can always say you have left something behind you and that’s a very gratifying feeling. It somehow creates a temporary bubble that blocks out any problem that you may have at that moment. We are not saying that you should use graffiti to run away from problems in life and act like they don’t exist, but to use it as a medium to relax and enjoy yourself.

Shouts…

Heavy artillery, T.T, Super Timor, Super Rumenka, Sito, Nychos, Ogre…

* Sobekcis Flickr, blog.