Working in New York City helps feed my constant need to see new things. One thing that has fueled my current work is urban scrawl. Graffiti on the sides of buildings, posted bills on a construction sites, and lampposts layered with stickers promoting propagandists. The city is a constantly evolving organism that has its own unique beauty. You can walk down a street in Lower Manhattan and see walls tagged with graffiti and walk down the same street a week later only to find that it is vastly different. The majestic signage and layered landscape of typography that is the city is amazing. I seek to create an image that makes you feel like your on a city street being bombarded with advertisements, street signs, and discarded paper.

I never want to know what a piece of my art will look like before I begin. By first coating a surface with some type of printed materials (magazines, junk mail, etc.), I seek to create a randomness that I try to carry through out the rest of the work. I use this initial collage as a springboard to layer other objects on top. A lot of the objects are found pieces of paper from the street and miscellaneous junk mail. I have a particular fondness for stamped random numbers that are found on parking tickets. I try to use images from the past, type from foreign language magazines, and drawings from my own sketchbook that I feel strong about. Then I apply acrylic paint on top of those sketches and images to complete the piece. By working in such a random manner, it is very satisfying when this process works.

I just love to create and be inspired.

Rik Catlow

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