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Interview – Mysterious Al

Interview – Mysterious Al

His name is synonymous with UK street art, and now Mysterious Al is painting up a storm, making his mark across the walls of Melbourne at the beginning of his sojourn across the country.

Playful, fun and character driven are all words that can be attributed to Als work – they are always a joy to see, throwing ones musings back towards the less serious side of street art. He’s worked underground, held exhibitions, influenced the direction of the UK movement and also made his mark on the commercial world with collaborations with clients such as Adidas, Volvo and Eastpak, and continues to push his art to new audiences and fans across the globe.

For our special Christmas feature, we had a chance to catch up with Al recently and throw him a few questions, and in pure light hearted, whimsical and Mysterious fashion, he had all the answers up his sleeve – and we were pretty Thrilled …

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Could you give us a  brief introduction to yourself and your work? How long have you been painting out on the street, and how did you find yourself immersed in the world of public artistry?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOnqjkJTMaA&ob=av3n

franks5

You’ve been down here in Australia for a couple of weeks now, how are you finding your stay here so far, what have been some of the surprises that you’ve encountered, both in terms of the street art scene as well as  the culture here?

You can learn everything you need to know in life from watching ‘Thriller’. You just need to look carefully at the clues. It’s all there.

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Monsters, creatures, franken-features and other near illustrative denizens – your overall themes run somewhere between near cartoon,  pop styled imagery to monster-hero love – what is it within this that resonates with you so much? What other motifs do you try to explore in your work?

All my work is autobiographical in some way.

franks2 You mentioned in an interview last year some of the work you were going to be doing after that, including some work for a few music acts and doing some visuals – how did that turn out? Also, what other projects have been some of the highlights for you in the past year?

When we see the first reveal of MJ as a zombie, he’s just so badass:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOnqjkJTMaA&feature=player_detailpage#t=505s

I think it’s all about his attention to detail in his little mouth movements as he does the shuffle. And those eyes… It still gives me shivers, and I’ve watched ‘Thriller’ almost every day since Youtube was invented.

franks

We’ve seen that you’ve been doing a bit of collaborative work with Unwell Bunny, from a few walls in Richmond and at the Spook Mag HQ, to the live art shows – how did you meet up with him, and what do you believe it is that made your styles complimentary to each other in order to enable these collabs?

Thriller is so amazing partly down to it featuring almost every ingredient needed in a zombie movie. You’ve got the puking zombie at 08:13, the dancing zombie chick at 09:10, and the zombie with his arm falling off at 07:50!

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Are you secretly planning to have a shows whilst you’re here, and, if so,  can you secretly (which probably wont be too secret after we put this up .. so…) tell us a bit about what you’d like to do in terms of all of that whilst you’re here?

It wouldn’t be.

Apparently the disclaimer about The Occult at the beginning of Thriller is there because MJ was a Jehovah’s Witness at the time. He was terrified about the whole thing, and nearly canned the project.

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We get that you probably don’t really follow it too much these days, but what can you tell us a bit about the UK street art scene 2011? What you think works, what doesnt, whats fresh, whats old, and where do you think it’ll go in the future – especially given the whole Olympic cleanup bullshit in London … you know, for us unenlightened Aussies.

I love how when MJ’s date wakes up at the end of the movie, the REAL MJ is far cooler than the version in her nightmare. “What’s the problem?” Awesome.

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Will you be travelling a bit more around the country outside of Melbourne whilst you’re here, and what do you plan to do after this  sojourn? What big things are in the future .. more importantly, what kind of work do you want to paint in 2012?

Ola Ray had posed in Playboy the same year she did Thriller. And man, she looks scarier than half of those undead zombie dudes:

For more info on Mysterious Al, check out his website here!

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