Mode 2 Interview for V1 Festival 2019 (РУССКИЕ СУБТИТРЫ). Legendary Graffiti Writer in Russia
36V1 Festival 18-22 July 2019
Saint-Petersburg, Russia
Born in Mauritius in 1967, Mode 2 arrived in London in the hot summer of 1976, discovering a whole new environment from that of his native island, where punk was in full boom, while dub and reggae were the prevalent musical backdrop of his Lewisham neighbourhood.
Having been drawing since he was small, his mother supplied him and his siblings with comics, and encouraged them to watch TV and listen to the radio during their first months in London, in order to learn English as quickly as possible before the start of school. With 2000AD as a weekly comic, Star Wars coming out in 1977, and an introduction to Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord Of The Rings in 1978 and Dungeons & Dragons by a friend of his oldest brother, Mode 2 was constantly inspired to explore these genres, immersing himself in heroic fantasy or sci-fi literature, painting lead figurines, and the wider culture surrounding these pursuits.
Being someone who has always loved to dabble, he continued drawing and painting, inspired by the rich environment around him, while also trying out more classical techniques such as oil and aquarelle. By the early eighties though, the sound of electro and rap, along with the discovery of spray-painting, when seeing Dondi at work in Malcom McLaren's & The World Famous Supreme Team Buffalo Gals video in 1982, or Hey you! The Rock Steady Crew in 1983, his focus was turning towards new horizons. The sound of electro and rap was redefining the world around him and giving him new sonic and rhythmic reference points, while the movement of dance, the fashion and attitude that went with it, and the visual language that wrapped the whole culture were influencing his drawings.
So; from the summer of 1984, he was hanging around Covent Garden, where Hip Hop culture had found a new fertile soil, and pretty much everybody from the London scene hung out. Having already been interested in lettering and logos, picking up the marker and spray-can was the next logical step. Starting with painting banners and hoardings that summer, while exploring the illegal aspect of writing, he would pair up with another artist called Scribla, and then with Zaki Dee and his crew, and paint on different events where he would also run into Pride, and 3D (Massive Attack). Subway Art had come out, and gave them all a window from which they could see much of what had been happening on New York City’s trains.
He helped to form a new crew called The Chrome Angelz, in March 1985, then met with Bando, who had come from Paris looking for competition. before going there to paint many times that year. Along with the music, the travelling and exchanging of styles made everybody progress very quickly in that short space of time, meeting up with Shoe from Amsterdam in mid-July, making Paris the crossroads of the culture in Europe.
He settled in Paris to work in computer graphics in 1987, but didn't stay long in that job with the computer technology of the time. One of his characters on the front cover of the seminal book Spraycan Art, taking his name to the four corners of the planet.He moved on to doing record sleeves, posters for dance events, or collaborations with photographers like Jean-Baptiste Mondino or later Harri Peccinotti. He was not really interested in canvases, until Emmanuel de Buretel called on him to organise à group show for the release of the Voodoo Lounge album from The Rolling Stones in 1995...
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