Crisp: Changing the face of Bogotá
We joined Australian-born, Colombian-based street artist Crisp on a journey that took us around Colombia’s vibrant capital city. Crisp shares his experiences within the booming urban art scene of Bogotà and connects us to the undiscovered jewels of the city.
Heritage
Growing up in the country city of Tamworth, Australia, Crisp’s artistic journey began long before he moved to Colombia. While the town is known for its rural culture, Crisp found growing up there an inspiring childhood that has impacted his work today. “As a skater, I used to skate until nine or 10 at night. It was a carefree, fun and safe lifestyle and no one locked their doors,” he says.
Crisp’s parents were both artists in different practices. His father focused on drawing and ceramics – with a kiln and clay workshop in the backyard, while his mother turned her skills to traditional watercolour landscapes and ran children’s art classes. The Asian heritage of his father was also something that defined Crisp’s childhood and encouraged him to explore the style of art from the region as his work progressed.
“There was a lot of influence from Asia as my father was born in Hong Kong and loved Asian art and my mother taught Japanese brushstrokes. Also, my sister was adopted from Vietnam. As a child, when we would go on an international holiday we would go to Asia. There is definitely a lot of influence from these areas and their artistic techniques in my work.”
Crisp’s venture into graffiti and street art took place once he had moved to Bogotá, Colombia. Here he was encouraged by the artist community to move from the canvas to street. These days Crisp finds himself working predominantly on walls all over the city, with the occasional canvas commission.
Family is very important to Crisp and to his work alike. His partner Ana features in a number of his pieces, and on a recent piece, in collaboration with UK street artist Miko, he involved his mother, who was visiting from Australia The collaboration saw Miko form an image of a child and an elephant, while his mother painted the buildings with pattern and detail. “You don’t see many street artists painting with their mum,” he said.
Bogotá
A city widely conceived as dark, Crisp views Bogotá with a fondness and sees the positive side of the region. “I love the people, who are amazing hospitable, friendly and kind,” he says. “Usually mass media gives such a bad perception that it is always negative, focused on the civil war, cocaine or drug trafficking or kidnapping. There is a lot more to Bogotá than that.”
For Crisp the biggest attraction of Bogotá is its urban art scene, something that he believes the world is still yet to discover. When he first came to Bogotá in 2001, there were curfews in the city, which detracted many tourists from visiting. Today Bogotá is opening up to the world and so is its urban art scene. “I think Bogotá is the most prolifically covered city in the world.” It is also more underground, compared to cities that have an iconic lane or a suburb. In Bogotá, it is everywhere, the city is completely covered.” One of the most vibrant roads is the one leading to the airport, what Crisp calls “the jewel in the crown of Bogotá street art.”
This passion for the city has led Crisp to not only become an active artist here, but also to run graffiti tours that give tourists and locals a chance to engage with the street culture. He aims to expose attendees to artworks they otherwise may not notice and introduce the work of the various artists working there. “I want to give people an inside angle, share the background of the works, the legal side of things and the social and political context,” says Crisp.
Politics
The growth of the street art medium can in some ways be attributed to the concept that in Bogotá street art is not illegal, only prohibited. While you can receive a fine for the damage you will most likely be told to simply move on. It is perhaps this blurred line between prohibited and legal that makes the art form a common medium for sharing messages of change and a political nature.
Crisp suggests that while the city is changing there is still a selection of strong material that you can work on. “There is the civil war that has been raging for fifty years, the gangs and the cartels, the corrupt political elite and their relationships with rival paramilitaries and also the vast inequality and injustice issues.” While the city is changing and technically graffiti is legal Crisp highlights that you do need to be careful if promoting messages of this nature, “many of the artists here use images and express the messages in riddles or image that you have to look into and solve for yourself.”
As we walked around Bogotá, Crisp shows us a piece he had created where the faces seen within the work were inspired by the culture of a disadvantaged area of Colombia. “I think people are obsessed with things being happy. To be honest, these areas are impoverished and there are large areas of inequality there. I don’t think street art and graffiti always has to be happy, I think it is important to express every type of emotion.”
This danger still deters some artists from delving into political content; the history of the city still prevails. There are many artists who present work from a purely aesthetic angle. “It used to be dangerous, journalism used to be one of the most dangerous jobs here. Journalists could be assassinated for saying the wrong thing, a reason why journalists and artists choose to not delve into political content too obviously.”
Personally, Crisp aims to communicate his message and encourage others to think differently about general issues. “My street art is about making the public think about certain things you wouldn’t normally or the mass media here in Colombia and the world generally is quite bias in terms of what they think and how they perceive situations.” Crisp recognises that the culture of Colombian street art allows him to have a voice. “Some of my work quite political and send a message, while other pieces are less strong and let people think about general issues such as the environment or animal rights. The beauty of Colombia, is that you have free reign to do that,” he says.
Community
Crisp’s work can be found all over the city, entwined within the urban community. He has also spent time working on projects that work with and speak directly to communities. He has ran workshops with children at Casa Taller Las Moyas in Barrio San Luis, in the mountains of Colombia teaching them how to paint stencils.
He also advocates the benefits of street art in the youth, to express their dissatisfactions and emotions. “It is better than violence, doing something naughty without actually hurting anyone. I don’t understand the obsession with governments and councils that walls have to be grey and blank. Why is it normal that you can’t have artwork on the walls?” he says.
Culture
There is an enriched cultural perspective present throughout Crisp’s work, particularly a series of works that have seen him merge sculpture and 2D art together. Taking from his sculptural background he developed a series of masks, painting onto them before mounting them on walls around Bogotá.
“I tend to juxtapose lots of different cultural patterns and designs within my work, including African, Asian and Maori. I find it difficult to describe my influences. A lot of artwork comes out of my head and results in me trying to explain it later or make a story up around it,” says Crisp. Working organically many of his designs have started as a pattern and evolved as he works on them.
As Crisp showed us the diverse range of artworks and styles, he conveyed that he believes “one of the great things about Colombia is that it is such a great mix of genetics with the European and Spanish connection the Indigenous people from the Amazon, the afro-Caribbean. This diverse mix of cultures, histories and beliefs in Colombia has melded over centuries to what it is today.” This diversity results in a range of styles within the street art seen around Bogotá.
Growth
The establishment of a life in Bogotá has broadened Crisp’s abilities and the potential of his practice allowing him to confirm what he wants from the art form. “Many artists have shows or exhibitions, I am not interested in that side of things at this point. At the moment I want to concentrate on putting work on the street,” he says. Crisp views the art scene in Bogotá as growing, highlighting that while in New York and London a lot of money is exchanged for artworks, but this is not yet the case in Bogotá.
“I think this will change, recently more international artists are being invited for corporate commissioned walls, workshops and festivals. Predominantly it is Latin Americans and locals and is still a scene that runs off its own steam. Artists are funding their own walls out of passion rather than economical gain.”
Crisp will continue to challenge and develop his own work through travel and collaboration. “I think it is important that you keep changing and evolving, by doing works with other artists you will get a piece or wall that you would never get on your own,” says Crisp. Whenever he has a chance to travel Crisp aims to paint a wall. Previous trips have seen him create work in Canada, New York, Brooklyn and Miami. Later this year he hopes to return to North America where he will produce a new series.
For images from Crisp’s global ventures through other parts of the world including New York, London and Mexico, launch the gallery feature.
Connect with Crisp for a further insight into his work via Facebook and Instagram (@crispstreetart).
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