When I started to paint on the subways, I was 14, and it was 1975. As I kept painting, I along with countless others, would take pictures for ourselves. If you painted, you needed a camera just to keep the pictures for yourself. There was never an idea of what was going to happen in 1980. Everything was for us, and no one else. But, as graffiti became popular, and the world recognized what was going on underground, the pictures became treasures.
American old school graffiti artist from New York City presents his early works on trains, thirty photographs taken by himself between 1976 and 1982.
"From early morning, till late at night, all I could do is think about trains. Trains, the way they move, the sounds they made, the smell they had...and the paintings on them. I first recognized the trains, and what was on them, when I was about 10 in 1971. I used to ride them, by myself, to meet my mother at her job on 42nd St. at Grand Central Station. The colors used make me wonder what these things were and how they got there. When I started to paint on the subways, I was 14, and it was 1975. As I kept painting, I along with countless others, would take pictures for ourselves. If you painted, you needed a camera just to keep the pictures for yourself. There was never an idea of what was going to happen in 1980. Everything was for us, and no one else. But, as graffiti became popular, and the world recognized what was going on underground, the pictures became treasures. If you asked, How did they do those paintings, and who did them? We had the answer: it was us. These pictures became our biographies; they were real, and they were us...Out of focus, blurry, cut off."
© Speerstra Gallery / © Crash
