At the Petit Palais museum in Paris, two eight meters inflatable wings emerge from either side of its grand facade as an enormous pink tongue lolls above its entrance. In 2024, for the first time in its history, the museum opened its doors to urban artists and the eye catching frontage is the work of the legendary D*Face. Now one of the world’s most renowned urban artists, D*Face – aka Dean Stockton – was essential to the birth of the movement now widely known as street art (although he “hates” that label). He began making his name with stickers distributed across East London, graduating to posters and murals and his work is instantly recognisable by its striking and often satirical tone and graphic aesthetic inspired by skate culture and pop art.
Credit: D*Face Studio.
This year has seen the release of a new book Permanent Impermanence and his next show will be in Taipei in December. From his studio in Peckham, he tells CULTUR.ART how he found his path to becoming an artist, what gets him in the right creative headspace and how art in the public domain speaks to everyone.
Why do you make art?
Because I couldn’t be a fighter pilot! Which is what I wanted to be as a kid. I think art is ultimately something where there’s a lot of ego in there: I’m making stuff that I like. I make weird, cool, graphic imagery which excites me and all of that comes from what resonated with me as a kid: skateboard graphics, graffiti and cartoons…My mum would, on occasion, take me to museums and galleries, your typical art institutions. But as much as I loved the work that I saw, I never really felt that it spoke to me. Certainly not in the same voice as I felt that graffiti was speaking to me, or record cover artwork or t-shirts or the skateboard graphics I saw in Thrasher magazine. They felt really vibrant and exciting. Whereas when I went to the museums, I felt like the artist had been removed from the equation. I could appreciate the artwork but I couldn’t really feel the artist.
So what is it about the type of art that you create that allows a more personal connection to come across?
With street art – although I hate that term and I hated it when it first started to be used. It felt like a marketing term – but street art can be anything because it’s so democratic. It’s there for everybody to partake in. You can love it and you can loathe it, which is what I feel art should be. And it’s also not really defined by a particular style; it’s defined by its parameters of working within the public domain. There’s so many styles within it that it would be very difficult to say what it is, its visual fingerprint.
Credit: D*Face Studio.
If you don’t identify with the term ‘street art’, how do you define what it is you do? Or is it as simple as saying you’re an artist?
I prefer ‘urban contemporary art’ – it feels a little broader. For me, ‘street art’ was people who drew on the paving slabs in chalk or mime artists! I’m an artist. Part of it is the public domain but when I’m in a gallery, I’m not a street artist then. But you don’t say: ‘I’m a gallery artist’.
How did you become an artist?
I never went out to be an artist. I want to make that really clear. Actually, when I was at school, nobody took the time to explain what I was interested in. I wasn’t aware that you could be a commercial artist, a graphic designer. For my parents, saying that their son wanted to be an artist was like declaring I was stupid. My mum was embarrassed to say ‘he’s into art’. She didn’t want that for me.
When I got on an animation course, it was the first time that someone explained to me ‘what you should be doing is fine arts’ – that was lighting the touchpaper for me. There was possibility there. They explained to me what I was into: that illustrator is Jim Phillips – he works for Santa Cruz as a commercial illustrator. You like pop art so you’ll like Andy Warhol and Roy Liechtenstein. I had thought the person doing the skateboard graphics was the pro skateboarder and so you had to be really good at skateboarding! It suddenly all joined up.
I started doing my own thing and putting stuff up in the streets in the early 2000s. I was trying to do something that could have more appeal than graffiti because while I love graffiti, I recognise that other people don’t enjoy that same aesthetic value. It was the really early days of ‘street art’. There were a few other people doing it – one of them was Banksy. At some point we all connected and started hanging out and East London was the canvas.
Credit: D*Face Studio.
How would you describe the art you create and the ideas you’re exploring?
I always consider myself to be a graphic artist – essentially I see that as black outlines which lends itself from illustrations in comic books or skateboard graphics. I’m trying to articulate an idea or emotion as quickly as possible. If I can do that with black and white, that’s great. If I can do that with a limited colour palette, cool. I’ve also defined it as “a-pop-colyptic” – using the pop art vernacular but with an edge of the reality. I feel like pop art was meant to deliver a question of consumerism but ended up being embraced by consumerism whereas I have a darker edge to my work. It questions relationships and life and death – these for me are very common grounds that everyone experiences.
Lil' Rebel, 2023. Credit: D*Face Studio. Relatively Irrelevant. Credit: D*Face Studio.
What impact do you find art has on your mood?
If I see something – in a gallery or in the streets – there’s a feeling in my stomach that is unparalleled. It could be ‘I wish I’d come up with that!’ or ‘I want to own that!’ or ‘Why the hell haven’t I noticed this before? Who is this person?’. There’s that immediate excitement of the discovery of art which has never waned.
What do you need to be in the right space to be creative?
Sometimes I find that when it’s pissing with rain outside, I’m the most creative because I know there’s nothing else I can do. I find music really inspiring so it really helps if I’m listening to something that’s new to me. In the studio, we get through a lot of music – it’s crucial to the atmosphere. Sometimes ideas just flow really easily and quickly and there’s other times where it’s a real battle – like I’m wading through a muddy field, knowing that I can get to the other side but it’s going to take some time.
Hounds Of Love, 2022. Credit: D*Face Studio. Think Fast. Credit: D*Face Studio.
What’s on the studio playlist at the moment?
Mannequin Pussy are my latest discovery. They’re kind of like that Hole-era, nineties, amazing female vocalist, amazing stage presence. Then Hermanos Gutiérrez, who are a pair of brothers who are somewhat akin to Western guitar music. Very good in the morning – you can have them playing for hours. But at the moment, we’re listening to Westside Boogie, a rapper.
Do you draw or paint every day?
Yes – draw, doodle, sketch, paint. Last week, we were painting a mural which was awesome. The good thing about painting a mural is that I’m completely engulfed in painting at that time. I can’t be on my phone. People can’t contact me. I’m up on a lift, out of people’s reach.
Credit: D*Face Studio.
By its nature, your work can be anywhere in the world. What makes the perfect canvas?
I talk about visibility and public interaction a lot. That came really early on, from the first sticker. Thinking, ‘If I put it there, more people will see it’. It’s grown from that. You go from a sticker to a poster to a painted piece and then someone gives you permission to paint a wall. And that’s one storey, then it’s two storeys, then four storeys and the next thing, you’re doing 22 storeys. Stepping back and seeing that volume of paint on a wall is always an attraction. There are times when I think I’ve done enough murals – they’re tiring, they’re taxing – but they call me back because of that impact you get. It’s unlike anything else.
Why is it so important that arts and culture reaches everyone and not just the people that the system has set up as its audience?
I really never liked that system, to be honest with you. For me, the power of public art is that it is welcoming. You can just go and explore and express. I still feel like the elite museums and galleries are a little bit exclusive. There’s a huge financial factor involved and I understand why but I feel like street art – and I use the words street art there! – has been overlooked because people haven’t taken it seriously. It’s just that thing kids do in the street. But what they haven’t seen is that we’ve been growing really deep, firmly embedded roots and people have really come along and joined that journey with us. From the early days of discovering stickers to buying their first print to buying canvases. We’ve just had the We Are Here show at the Petit Palais in Paris – that was the biggest capacity they’ve ever had in that museum. It blew the doors off! But I can tell you now that they were very resistant to letting that show happen because it’s not something they understand, that they’ve been paying attention to. They’re obviously nervous of it. I guess it’s the same as the punk movement.
Credit: D*Face Studio.
How do you believe that art can have an impact on the way the world works?
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that because I used to think music had the biggest power to provoke collective thought and change. I can’t think of many things where you can get 250,000 people in a stadium, chanting along to a song they all have their own emotional attachments to. But art is a much slower burn. I think that historically, art has shown that it holds its place in time, maybe better than music actually. If it’s put in the right place – hung in the right museum or collection – it has an ability to define time and a moment, culturally.
Credit: D*Face Studio.
Want to see more from D*Face? Head on over to his website ➡️ https://www.dface.co.uk/
By Rachael Sigee. Check out all of her amazing platforms! https://rachaelsigee.com/
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