GRAFFITI REBORN

Kwest’s studio sits right next to the railroad tracks, a circumstance that resonates with his outlaw-artist past. As a young graffiti writer, the artist would ride rails back and forth across North America, stowing away to leave his mark on boxcars, sometimes while they were moving. Later days have meant less derring-do and a shift to gestural sculpture that echoes his graffiti work, which has brought some high-profile commissions: large-scale sculptures for Humber College, Fring’s restaurant (a collaboration by Susur Lee and Drake) and a pair of pieces now being enjoyed by Drake himself. One is suspended from the ceiling in his recording studio and the other serves as supports for a ping-pong table the hiphop superstar received for his birthday last week.

TODD KOROL/TORONTO STAR Graffiti artist and sculptor Kwest, pictured in his west-end studio, poses near the base of a ping-pong table — a birthday gift commissioned for Drake.

This sculpture, an organic tangle of steel forms, evokes both his graffiti work and jagged figuration.

Kwest builds abstract forms that seem to bring his graffiti work to life. Here, rusted metal fragments are fused with bolts of colour.

A steel-cut collage forged from the derelict door of a 1958 Chevrolet truck.

Kwest festoons this miniature boxcar model with his graffiti.