When did you start writing?

I did my first character with the YMB crew on a wall in deep river in 97
and my next first character with Wealz and Tag 4 on the Clovelly wall next to the beach.

If you had to pick three writers from the Cape Town scene that stand out for you, who would they be and why?

wealz130 because hes been my mentor and adviser for life and his history with the scene is of great importance.
toe007 because he has consistently maintained his work and style and has kept alot of other writers on their ‘toes’.
rasty because he has perfected his technique more then anyone else in South Africa

Do you have a message to younger writers starting out?

Not really… people need to find their own path.

Where do you draw the line between street art and graffiti?

Graffiti is a structured thing, there are certain ways of doing things and procedures you need to go through in order to develop and be recognized. This is important to the scene so that it functions properly.
Street Art is more loose - freer in its method, anything goes. It also is more interactive with the environment and generally more concept based.

In South Africa there are not really any real street artists who are very active which is strange because there is so much of it everywhere else in the world. You always get your traditional graffiti writers, but you also get alot of writers who cross over and try things differently.
Personally, I like to see things on the street and if its good its good. I like seeing random scribbles written by some drunk homeless person… things like that.
I have a fascination with walls and textures and broken corners and rusted metal.

I dont like to put too many rules and regulations and definitions and whats allowed and whats not. I mean life is life. you’re born. you breath. you die. we need to find our own meaning to it. So I dont like to subscribe to other peoples ideas… I’d rather make my own mind up about things like this.

Much of your recent work quotes lines from the ANC’s freedom charter. Would you consider yourself a member of the ANC?

haha… No. That series of work that I did was more of a reflection on the freedom charter.
The Freedom Charter is a document that was put together in the 1950s and it outlines a list of demands pain-stakingly collected from the people of South Africa. It became a banned document and formed the backbone of the struggle movement.
I thought it would be a good time to reflect on this document now, when the economic policies of the ANC have scarcely benefited the people and the recent xenophobic violence shows us the large amount of hypocrisy of our country. Basically, to see how we are going off track to what the original ideals were.
Rowan Pybus and I are making this into a new video project.

You have painted in many different places overseas. Is there a foreign scene that stands out to you?

Yes, I specifically loved the scene in Brazil. Sao Paulo is great! The Pixacou is amazing to see - how the whole city is completely covered top to bottom in it… very interesting that scene.
Also, it’s the place I went to where there is no real division between street art and traditional graffiti. Loads of writers only do characters, you see some crazy crazy shit there. People experiment and the things they come up with are really special. And there is just SO much on the streets. Every corner holds some kind of piece, character , production, political statement, pixacou… whatever.
The writers there also have the best attitude - and it’s the place where I’ve had the most fun painting - there is not an overly hardcore attitude like you get in most European or American scenes. Even though I would say some of these writers in Brazil of course handle situations which are much more hard core than in Europe. The streets are really tough.
I guess one of the differences is that in Europe you’re careful of the police. In Brazil you are careful of the thugs. But, I think like here if you’re clever you can get away with thugs when you know how things work… with some exceptions of course.

You have also exhibited with many world class graffiti artists. Name your 3 favourite international artists at the moment.

hmmmmmm…. That’s not easy. I’d say Os Gemeos , Blu and I’m a fan of the L.A. styles like Sever and them… but there are too many to choose three.

Graffiti is becoming an increasingly popular art form. Do you think there are any down sides to this popularity spilling over to South Africa?

That’s nothing new really. Yeah, it does mean it gets really watered down - like anything that becomes mainstream or commercial.
It’s important to do things for the right reasons and have blinkers on to all the hype… at the end of the day everything fades away and all that is left is your own thoughts and stories.
But, I think that the fact that graffiti has its illegal side, which is by nature anti social and is just downright dirty and nasty and not many people can appreciate or understand that. I think that’s what saves it from the media fashion monster to some degree. It will remain somewhat underground.
But, the S.A. scene is pretty small and Cape Town has been taking big hits from the council. So there is much growth to be done… lots… to be done…

Dont sleep.

For more pics of Faith47’s work… check out www.faith47.com