L7 Matrix will be among the major artists featured on the Street Art Auction running on SINGULART from the 20th to the 25th of April. In this interview, L7 Matrix leads us through his street art journey, touching upon how everything that he creates in the street and on canvas explodes in colours, beauty and chaos.
1. When and why did you decide to become a street artist?
It all started when I decided that I wanted my art in various places and to reach the maximum number of people possible. It also began as a personal evolution of my work, from starting in abandoned places to working in buildings and in different countries around the world. Another thing that contributed to this idea of painting in the street is to feel all the freedom on wide walls!
2. How would you describe your art? What are the core themes in your works?
Well, all my inspiration is part of what I live at the moment or childhood memories! For example, the theme of birds is the best known subject of my works, or spectra and faces that resemble coloured spirits up to bioluminescent jellyfish, so my work is everything I like and feel. The most important thing is that everything has movement and screams and explodes in beauty and chaos.
3. Can you talk about your artistic influences and other artists you felt most inspired by during your street art journey?
My first influences in the artistic universe were of modern masters such as Van Gogh, Larionov, Modigliani, Picasso and others. They motivated me to continue making my art through their masterpieces and also inspired me through their stories full of truth and personality that made me believe it possible to be an artist, live by art and fly around the world spreading colours and feelings.
4. What message would you like to deliver through your art?
My art has a message for people about freedom and how we can get around daily thorns, escape the chaos and survive well with all of this! The idea of my art is in my personal emotions. You will find a lot of details and movement, above all a natural fluidity that I use when I’m painting without sketches just trying to transmit my emotions through lines with spray, quick brush strokes and different movements. I try to not have an expected result, but a surprise for each painting.
5. How do you decide when a work needs to be drawn on a wall or on a canvas?
Unlike many street artists, I started painting on canvas in common workshops. I painted oil and traditional paintings but I felt very stuck and it was not what I liked or identified myself with, so after that I took a long step towards urban art and kept my work in the canvases and galleries too! Today I put more emphasis on the canvas but street art is part of me and will always be.
6. What would the world be like without street art?
Maybe it would be very grey, I would not be here and I would never have expressed myself in a genuine way and without street art in its purest form.
