MADRID REVOLUTION… SWET (ZFP)

Madrid Revolution is back with another classic bomber from Madrid’s late 1990s underground scene. SWET (ZFP) gives us a first person account of his experience with graffiti in that golden era in Madrid.

I came to Madrid in 1998, and lived there for two years. I remember it as my best period for graffiti, even though the quality of my pieces back then wasn’t what it is now.

I painted a lot of trains but what I really loved was the metro; I did more than 40 pieces, some of them on the ‘manecillas rojos’ (type of a subway car).

I always got along well with the writers from Madrid and I painted with them a lot, but I would mostly paint with THOW, SHAS, WAINE, DALE, DANO…

At that time, Madrid was a city where you could paint the metro or trains almost wherever you wanted to, because there wasn’t as much security or cameras as there are now. Honestly, if I had more money back then, I would have painted way more… hehe.

We had missions of a few hours for when we would do wholecars or huge pieces, but most of my pieces took 15 or 20 minutes.

In that period, we all knew each other, ‘cos there weren’t as many people painting as there are now, and things were more relaxed, which made painting in the metro more easy, and much more enjoyable than it is now.

I’ll never forget those years living in Madrid, and the various anecdotes, like the day when we painted a wholecar in the metro and the guard just let us finish painting in peace, and he even let us do another piece after that one…or we could have painted the AVE too. Great memories which I’ll always keep with me.

Greetings, Madrid, and see you soon.

SWET 2012