MONTANA-CANS LOOKBOOK 2020

MONTANA-CANS Your backgrounds are of the most well rounded a graffiti artist or fine artist could ask for. Your involvement in graffiti alone has led you to tick just about every box a writer(s) could want to tick. But how do you view yourselves? Is there words or a preference of descriptive words that you would use to describe yourselves to those not in the know? HOWNOSM (Laugh), I don’t know, we don’t see ourselves better than other graffiti artists or artists, we just have done maybe a little bit more than others, and we have been painting for almost thirty years now, so it speaks for itself that we have a large body of work but, I mean, that’s just what we do, that’s just one part of who we are, it doesn’t make us just writers you know, I don’t know it’s… I know what you are talking about, back in the days we painted the trains and then we started to do walls and legal walls and big productions and then we started to do our art and the transition of what we were doing from the streets into canvas so… But we’re not the only ones, there is a lot of people who do that, I don’t know. Maybe we stand out because our style is very original and unique and, you know, and we are twins. But I don’t know how I would to describe myself (laugh) in that case, I never thought about it you know what I mean? I like what I do, I’m glad that I can live of what I’m doing and what I love and I never take it for granted you know. we don’t see ourselves better than other graffiti artists or artists, we just have done maybe a little bit more than others MC We as keen observers have followed the development of your work for many years. Your achievements aboveground and underground have been prolific and inspiring. Do you still get to dabble in all disciplines of your graffiti heritage? Or has your international exposure meant your anonymity has become difficult? Do you even still have the itch to do something under the radar or is it »been there done that« for you? HN No, not really, I mean we’ve done our first year of illegal graffiti all over the world and we’ve been in many places like maybe like seventy countries, before many other people we were doing graffiti there, before there was Montana spray cans there so we got our itch out of the system really. I mean yeah, it’s always nice when we came over here, we were riding in the subway and we see graffiti on the Paris subway, of course, we love that and we look at it, we take some pictures of it but we almost forty four years old now and have kids and we’re focusing on our work. ↑ There is no scale too big or small. It‘s all just another day out of the office for HOW and NOSM. MC We understand the move to use only Black, White and Red (and tones thereof), was born out of necessity while travelling through South American countries. But what was the catalyst to stay within this color spectrum and was it a conscious decision? For example, was there a day when you said »OK, let’s now only use these three colors and any we create from mixing them«? Or was it a gradual process? HN I guess we were doing it for so long in south America and specially these three that at some point people recognized so fast our style and the kind of palette that we decided to stick with it so people can still keep recognizing the work we paint, and after a while we just added like different shades of paint and greys to it and now a little bit more like purple ich into it. It’s still 36 Interview HowNOSM IN PARIS

the same type of colors, it’s developing slowly but it’s still the same. MC For anyone that looks closely, there are a lot of individual symbols, icons and re-occurring images in your artworks. Are these design decisions, or is there a dialogue happening within each painting, or with the works as a series? you have to paint not only like four, five hours a day, because then it takes forever and then, you get more tired of it. So, we usually knock of ten hours a day you know. Plus you have to also look at the weather condition you know, if it’s windy or if it’s gonna rain a lot, you can’t be out there it’s too dangerous, it’s too slippery, so on this particular wall we saw that it was gonna start raining Wednesday, so we tried to finished by Tuesday (laugh). HN I mean our work always as certain messages and we use different imageries to bring their messages over to the public. And obviously there is some imagery that would be used just out of decorative purposes. I mean, we use the bottle for example as, you know, as a reference to message in the bottle so it’s a scenery, let’s say like a couple arguing each other that we could put it in the bottle as a message in the bottle, and hearts or for example re-occurring arrows, and keys, all kinds of different images that not always have to have a specific purpose you know. MC Do you prefer to create one-off work like walls, canvases that can be reproduced like prints, or digitally created works? HN Most of the work we do is drawn out on paper first so the fine art line work is sketch on paper and usually transferred onto the canvas or a template for working on a building for example, so we know how to size the mural. But usually everything is handmade you know, some computer work when it comes to laying out big buildings so we know where the colors go and where looking for to save time. Yeah the most of it is free hand and we take a picture of it and layered out of photoshop if we wanna use a certain canvas or sketch on a mural, it’s mainly how we do stuff, by drawing it by hand (laugh). because then it takes forever and then, you get more tired of it. So, we usually knock of ten hours a day, you know MC Your ability to move from large to small and all scales in between is astonishing. While standing here looking at this massive project in Paris, did you get nervous or was it just another day in the office for you both? HN It’s just another day out of the office! Yeah, we don’t get nervous, we just make sure that we are well rested the days before, because it’s very physical you know, it’s not like it’s a small wall, you have to crank it out, ↑ Red, black and white. Re-occurring in every possible tone and shape. ↓ Well defined shapes are outlined in black as soft and hard work hand in hand. Interview HowNOSM IN PARIS 37