RAGE!
Today I painted a wall together with Hek and Fakt. It was freezing and we had a shower of snow, but at least it wasn´t raining like all the last days. When I asked myself what to paint, I found I wanted to express emotion, specifically rage! Since this is an often suppressed and denied emotion, I think it´s good to get to know ourselves on this level and work on safely expressing it and releasing the charge involved - thus to create a safer world for all of us!
I felt it was just right to work with these bright and dark shades of red, plus using the cold cyan for the outlines. The blue in the background has already been there. The red symbolizes blood and also the root chakra, where much rage is located. The cold cyan outlines make me think of metal, they symbolize heartless borders of suppression aswell as the sword 'defending' your borders on the outside in a rage. It felt good to do all these strokes without being bound in the average idea of having to do very clear and clean outlines to my piece. The charge releases into the ground via the arrows...
KM-ON-E
I started this triptych about two years ago but only finished it last week, two days before winter solstice. The background is done in cyan, magenta and yellow. The black and white stencil layers above consist of the five elements of my name K-E-N-M-O, so it took 20 steps on each of the three parts to get completed.
KM (which I used as short for Kenmo in the past) stands for 'Kosmic Man' ('Kosmischer Mensch' in german). ON stands for the opposite of off, meaning 'awake, alive, vibrating' and E stands for the energy, excitement and ecstacy - not in a sense of escapism to flee the troubles of the world, but rather 'enrealment', meaning the natural state of a free human being.
The size is 1m x 40cm each, 1,20m x 1m complete. Spraypaint on canvas.
The Story Continues – 1994
In 1994 I continued to paint massive amounts of pieces for that time. There was nothing else I could think of, really. All I had was Hip Hop and Graffiti and I made full use of it, not being very aware yet that doing so often meant avoiding other stuff - the problems in my family especially. I think this might quite well have been the peak level of my early Graffiti 'career'.
Kenmoe 1993
A designer asked me to do this piece for him. He liked my contest work so much and wanted me to do another one with black and grey. These are 6 pieces of wood which can be hung separately with each one letter on them - K E N M O E.
My first kind of Mandala I think.
Graffiti Contest, Hamburg 1993
In spring 1993 I took part in a Graffiti contest in Hamburg at the "Kampnagel"-area. You had to apply for it by sending in sketches, from which 25 participants were chosen. I just tried it out and was surprised to receive an invitation. One week off from school and they paid for the journey and the stay and of course the spraycans. I knew I was going to enjoy it!
I met writers from Dresden, Itzehoe, Lüneburg, "Sener" from Bremerhaven and "Wow123" from Bremen that I knew before, but most participants came from Hamburg. I was a bit puzzled by few people that seemed to be so overambitious and at least one person even dared to say he would 'by all means' rank in the top 4 - before he even started to paint! Some of them were very disappointed when they heard the news in the middle of the week that "Daim" was going to take part as well...
I just did my work and enjoyed the scenery. I felt glad to get to know "Jase", who by that time was quite a famous oldschool Graffiti artist and Breakdancer from the crew "The Def Stars". He´s such a nice guy and we had a good time together. We decided to do a piece together at the "Treff" the next day, after we had finished our contest paintings.
A few weeks later I was very surprised to find out that I made the second prize - right after "Daim" and "Hesh" who won the first one. As a reward I got this commissioned work to do for the boutique "Meyer´s" at the "Gänsemarkt" in the centre of town. Even the radio and the newspapers were talking about it.
