Taking it to the streets graffiti-style
Warren Feeney discovers how one local street artist has become internationally renowned thanks to his Christchurch creations.
This year is already looking like another busy one for Christchurch-based street artist Wongi Wilson. He is about to begin a new public work for Christchurch Airport’s Spitfire Square and, in May, he is travelling to Nepal, courtesy of clothing company Kathmandu, for the release of his new T-shirt design, coinciding with the 65th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary’s climb of Mt Everest.
He and manager Emma Wilson readily admit that over the past seven years Christchurch has been good for his art and career. He has developed from being a local artist in 2010 to establishing national and international attention over the past four years.
Emma says that opportunities have grown rapidly. ‘‘There were so many opportunities for Wongi after the quakes, so I could not have done better than leave the accounting firm where I was working to be his manager. I have never, ever doubted Wongi and it quickly got to a point where he was so busy with work coming in that he quit his studies.’’
In 2010, as Wongi recalls, he was at Ara (then the CPIT School of Art and Design) doing an arts degree in visual communication. ‘‘After the September 2010 quake, there was a fair amount of destruction and we would go out and find all these walls.
‘‘Graffiti art was still frowned on then, but instead of people trying to remember what was where a building or business had been, graffiti art became a distraction for them.’’
So how did becoming a reputable street artist begin for him? He says that art has always been important in his life.
‘‘The artform side of things began at school in the 1980s and 90s and there is one main influence from back then.
‘‘A hip-hop magazine had a production on the back – Enter the Graffiti Masters – with a Bruce Lee character from the movie Enter the Dragon in the middle. That was the first thing that motivated me.
‘‘The second point that pushed me, about 15 years ago, was another graffiti crew – Maclaim – a group of street artists from Germany. They focused on painting large-scale photorealism, and I was astounded to see graffiti art that looked as realistic as a photo, painted free-hand with a spray can.’’
Wongi was also selected to participate in the inaugural street art festival, Rise, at the Canterbury Museum in 2014, and since then has completed numerous commissions in Christchurch’s inner-city, including working on the walls of Ara’s music studios – Box Quarter – on the corner of St Asaph and Madras Sts.
He finds working in public exhilarating. ‘‘I like working on a large scale. I am free to be multiple storeys up on a building and it is good to be able to be out in public when I work.’’
Emma comments that, in the early years, Wongi had to take every job that came along.
‘‘Now, we get to pick and choose and generally accept the commissions that have a certain degree of creative freedom or interesting projects and Wongi’s skills have developed.
‘‘With large-scale murals, there is always an element of collaboration, because someone else owns the canvas and they usually have their own ideas.
‘‘Now, we have heaps of repeat customers and are careful what we choose to do.’’
Emma also recalls that the Christchurch City Council and Creative New Zealand’s support for a summer arts programme of music, street art, performance and exhibitions in ReStart, Cashel Mall in 2013 and 2014 was also important.
‘‘Being in Cashel Mall gave street art credibility. Wongi laughed about it at the time – to be in Cashel Mall painting on a building behind the Bridge of Remembrance – because it would never have been allowed prequakes.’’
Art Beat also led to a meeting with street art entrepreneur, George Shaw.
‘‘He introduced himself to us in ReStart,’’ Emma says. ‘‘He said he had the idea of trying out a street art event here.
‘‘So, we had a meeting with him and he told us about his plan. ‘I might have a venue,’ he said to us. ‘It might be the Canterbury Museum’, and we were thinking, ‘this is ridiculous’.
‘‘We just kept saying, ‘OK, whatever you need, let us know’.’’
‘‘But, it became a reality with Rise in 2014,’’ adds Wongi.
‘‘When Nick ‘Ikarus’ Tam and I were painting artworks at ReStart, we were pinching ourselves about it all the time – ‘we couldn’t believe we were able to do this’ – and it was the same with painting in the Canterbury Museum.
‘‘I remember walking through it with George and seeing all these things I remembered from there as a child, and they were still there in exactly the same spot. It was a surprise to be able to paint graffiti in an institution like that.’’
Emma singles out the Rise festival as playing a further significant role in professionalising Wongi’s art practice.
‘‘It shone a really big light on the artform itself and, among other things, helped with Wongi’s development.
‘‘He had complete creative freedom and painted alongside international and national artists who normally painted what they wanted to, not what other people expected them to.
‘‘It changed the business from focusing on income to a focus on Wongi’s art and his career as an artist.
‘‘That was the point at which a certain degree of creative freedom became a condition of the commissions that we’d accept, for Wongi to develop as an artist.
‘‘The indoor exhibition space in 2015 for Spectrum also provided an additional opportunity to have a large-scale installation. Hardly anyone around the world working in street art was doing something like that.
‘‘George and Shannon Webster were very smart about bringing in high-profile, international artists. Internationally, street artists heard about and saw photos of the installations in the exhibition spaces and they wanted to be a part of it.
‘‘It was different from any other street art festivals at that time because it’s normally murals on outdoor walls.
‘‘Wongi’s association with the festivals helped get his name out there internationally. It was an amazing time and, if not for the quakes, it would not have happened.’’
The visit to Nepal has come about through Kathmandu, which has recently launched a street artists’ line of T-shirts. The first one, by Nepalese artist, Shradda, led to the invitation for Wongi to design the next one.
‘‘Shradda flew out to Christchurch to paint on a rollerdoor on the laneway by the Vodafone building in the Innovation Precinct and they wanted a local artist to paint one, too,’’ says Wongi.
‘‘Kathmandu liked what I had done and asked me if I would be the next artist to design a T-shirt for them.
‘‘They are sending me to Nepal for 19 days to trek to base camp. Five dollars from every T-shirt goes to the Australian and New Zealand Himalayan Foundations to build schools and provide education for children in Nepal.
‘‘ Last year was busy. I went to an artists’ forum in Auckland – Forum – which was attended by other graffiti artists talking about our work.
‘‘The Auckland Council got rid of all the graffiti art just before the Rugby World Cup in 2011. They buffed it off the walls for that event and have continued to do so since then. So, as part of Forum, the street artists attending were also doing the first public works since the Rugby World Cup.’’
Emma says that until 2012, she had scheduled an exhibition of his work every year. ‘‘All of his works would sell, but I realised I was forcing him to paint to exhibit and sell his works for the sake of it.
‘‘It felt like quantity over quality, so I decided, ‘let’s wait and see what happens’. It was kind of silly to be insisting on this oncea-year sale of his work and it helped me realise we should be focusing on large-scale mural works and also that, for an artist, business is like a lifestyle.’’