Wika: Multimedia Artist

by John Schoen

A Los Angeles native with roots in guerilla art, Wika has worked primarily with aerosol paint, bombing city skylines and planting incredibly detailed murals in public spaces. Since 2006, Wika has devoted himself to the more socially acceptable (legal) arts, working with recycled materials ranging from vinyl records to plastic vending machine covers, in addition to creating a line of signature baseball caps, each one painstakingly designed with acrylic and aerosol paints. His eye for detail and his fascination with patterns and form are a driving force behind his art, an intelligent mixture of color and design. Numerous local businesses owners in the Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania area have commissioned Wika to revamp their stores and design murals, and he's also started his own company, www.lookdeep.org, where you can view and purchase his work online.

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Why the pseudonym 'Wika'?

I used to write graffiti under a different name, but someone else was writing with that name and they were really pissing people off, getting death threats. So I decided to change it to Wika. I liked the letters, they way they looked with paint. It was never about the religion, although when I was a kid I liked to read about it. I just like the way it looks, and I'm magical, so it works.

How long have you been serious about your work?

After I got arrested [for destruction of public property], back in 2006. Before that I would paint, but I would just give my work away. I never really considered selling my work or displaying it until after I got busted. I had a lot of fines, and I had to pay them off. I figured that if my artwork got me into trouble. . . it can get me out of it. It worked, too.

What media have you been working with recently?

I really can't get away from spray paint. I still use it even with smaller projects, like the baseball caps and the vinyl records. I've started painting with brushes too, which is a whole new thing. But there's something about the can—there are so many angles to work with, how far to hold the can, different spray-tips making it wide or skinny. . . With a paintbrush, it's either heavy or light. But it's adding to my skill-set, so when I decide to commit to bigger projects I can just flow right through it.

You work in multiple layers and dimensions, and some of your pieces can be mistaken for airbrushing, given how precise they are. Can you describe the process of constructing some of your canvas work, especially having achieved such exact angles and forms with can of spray paint?

To get exact angles, it's all how you block out what you don't want to get paint on, so I use masking tape, or cut out paper, then spray.

Do you have a definite idea of what you want to create before you begin?

No, actually. Ninety-nine percent of the time I just make it up as a go along. I used to sketch, especially with graffiti, drawing out the letters and then plant the work, but now, unless someone has asked me to do something really specific, I just go with what I'm feeling.

Some of your work includes pop-culture figures and icons, like the alien chick from Avatar, Bob Marley, Mahatma Gandhi, and even Bob Saget. What statement are you trying to make here?

A lot of times people ask for those. If there's a popular subject in the center of the work, chances are the piece was commissioned. My fascination is with patterns. I'm more into shapes, which stems from my background in graffiti. Where I grew up I wasn't exposed to classic art. I couldn't name but a handful of artists and I didn't know much about art history. I was only familiar with what was thrown up on the walls near my house. With that in mind, I've built on what I've learned through lettering structure, and that serves as the basis of my art now. I wanted to keep the same type of sharp geometry involved in graffiti and bring it to a different abstract level, which features a more futuristic look. . . as opposed to something dated, something that's been done a hundred times before. It's really what I think the future should look like, anyway.

You really do like to play around with patterns in your work. Why?

I'm obsessed with shapes and patterns. Everything in the world is part of a pattern. If you knock your girlfriend up, all of a sudden everyone is pregnant, and those are the patterns you notice. There are patterns everywhere you look. It's pretty much the basis of my work.

Some of your more, well. . . illegal work appears all over Wilkes-Barre. Why do you choose one façade over another?

Everything has a home. If you hang artwork in your house, you can't just put it anywhere. And you can't just go paint a Beverly Hills neighborhood. That's just stupid. You look for signs of deterioration, and that's where you're going to find the good murals. A lot of cities, especially this one, close their eyes to that part of town—the more dangerous areas—and that's where I've gone. That's the place to do it, where even the cops are afraid to go. . . It's about taking those signs of industry and greed and everything that's failed and collapsing and turning it into something incredible. . . It's a place that can look completely gritty, but there's still beauty.

Most people that look at your work will only see it for a split-second as they drive by. What impact can graffiti have on people?

Graffiti is the anti-advertisement. Graffiti is the answer to growing up in the eighties when we were bombarded with commercials, when every cartoon was trying to sell us shit. Now, we're throwing it in people's faces, except it's free. When it comes to graffiti, it's not like we're sitting in our basements and painting and then selling the work directly to galleries so some rich guy sipping wine can enjoy it. We're putting it out there where everyone can see it, and we're risking our freedom because we care about it. We mean it. I still have a love for everything about it, even though I've moved on.

What prompted you to get into clothing design?

I really always wanted to do clothing. A while ago I was passing through an Army Navy store and the owner offered me a case of baseball hats for cheap. And that's where it started. I must have done about eighty hats by now, designing and painting them individually. If I had a sewing machine I'd probably be cutting up clothes and sewing them together in different ways, creating crazy looks. Clothing says a lot about a person, who they are. . . what they do. If you can wear art and walk around, it creates interesting situations. A friend of mine once said, "Dude, it's like art… that you can where on your head!"

It's like a walking advertisement for your work.

Sure. The hats are cool because they're one of a kind. There's never going to be one like yours. Yeah, people are wearing them outside of their houses, so it's like portable art, and with that comes the advertisement, I suppose.

Speaking of mobile art, have you ever tagged a homeless person?

Yeah. . . I was 17 or so, but I gave him money. It's not like I just walked up to him and started painting him.

What inspired you to use recycled material for canvases?

I used to refurbish vending machines, and they would just throw the covers away, about thirty to forty a week. I asked my boss if I could use them. He was happy because it was less in disposal fees and I was happy because I could use them for my art. And that's where the vinyl records came into play. I was trying not to buy new materials . . . I figured there was so much waste in the world, why not reuse something old? I'd use anything I could get my hands on. Canvas is great, but reusing materials evens out the destructive part of creating art. If you think about all of the material you need to create pieces, all of the industrial waste that goes into making those things and the paint itself, it makes sense to recycle material as much as you can. It's a way of balancing out what I use.

If someone asked you to describe your art, what would you tell them?

I wouldn't. I'd just show it. . . I feel that art is like music—if you give it words, the song is about that one thing, and you can't shake the thought of, "Oh, this is a song about love," or whatever it's about. Let's say that you have that same song without the label—then it can mean unlimited things to many different people. I think defining my work is unnecessary, and if there is a defined message, it'll be hidden in the work itself, either obvious or available for those who can see.

322 Review, the Literary Journal

Wika: Multimedia Artist

by John Schoen