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| Doze Green Interview |
Art Feature |
Words by: Puzle
If a picture tells a story, the layers of his images speak thousands. A multitude of life experience, the past, the future, woven into a symbolic language of his own for those who choose to look, see or try to understand. He is also an early New York City graf writer and Rock Steady Crew breaker, not to mention a forerunner in the massive wave of underground art that is making its sweeping transcendence from to the street to the gallery world. I took the time out to hit him up for some insight into his journey.
Having played a part in the pioneering era of hip-hop in NYC, and the spread that has had throughout the globe must be a rewarding feeling. Can you tell us what it was like growing up in NYC at this time and also the innocence in being involved in a sub-cultural phenomenon that was still in its embryo stage?
I was involved with helping to develop a phenomenon, a movement and a culture that has spanned the globe and changed the face of music art and dance as we know it.
Who were the influences that directly attributed to your interest in art, graffiti and also breaking?
God, its creation, my mother. I’ve had many influences. I think that the core of that stems from the style master generals of the mid to late seventies such as Chain3 and the TMT crew, Dondi White (my sensi), CIA crew, Slave, Phase2, Part TDS crew, Lee Quinones and of course, the iconoclast panzer Rammellzee. B.boy. Influences? Damn so many cats… so many battles. Names like: Drago, Trac, The Nigga Twins, Ron Daris, Rubber Band, Louie Lou, Spy, Jimmy Dee, Jojo, Mongorock, Frosty Freeze Brooklyn, Dynasty Rockers and my brother and compadre Ken Swift.
Did you always draw as a kid, were you destined to be an artist?
I have always drawn painted or created some shit ever since I was a wee lil ghetto bastard. My mother and granny would set me up with newspaper, crayons, poster paint, shoe polish, whatever and I’d chill all day while they did their chores or whatever. They always promoted free expression, imaginary and not so imaginary friends to play with. I was always in some kind of museum eating lunch or just glaring at the endless boring cavernous rooms of 19th century contemporary shit. It taught me a lot. What not to paint like that is. I guess with all of that in my favour and a little bit of DNA, sure destined? Not dead yet.
Did ‘DOZE’ your tag name really come from a girl in school calling you a ‘dozey’ mother fucker at the age of 11. Were you a dozey motherfucker or just a dreamer?
No comment.
Can you shed some light on whether the hip-hop culture as it stands today, with the elements of breaking, graffiti, mc’ing and djaying were packaged into one product by certain people and films? How do you believe all the elements of early hip-hop culture came together?
Hip-hop is underground where it belongs. Rap culture is trying to front as hip-hop. Rap culture sucks capitalist ass-bump secretions. I’m a bit bored with the boneheaded product pawns in the commodity cash-out culture. The peoples culture hip-hop will prevail because the rest of the world knows that hip-hop is a movement of liberation from enslavement it is a movement of constant change and creativity. You can’t destroy the human spirit’s need for expression. As it was in the beginning so shall it be in the next.
Can you tell us about your transition from painting subway cars through to the canvass gallery world? Were you always painting both?
Yeah well, that started in the early 80s with the fun gallery, 51x gallery and P.S.1 shows. I had been discovered as a graffiti artist through the many performances that we did in Soho and the lower east side gallery scene. Patti Astor gave me my first show. It snowballed until the mid eighties then almost overnight shit changed. The dark years ensued after that. But that is a whole different story. I basically went to the lab on a 10 year hermetically sealed reality search and studying magic mush filled encounters of the fifth kind. It was around 1996 that I decided to showcase my newly discovered terrain. It’s been a groovy sit-in freak-out to say the least.
In your more recent interview in the re-released 80’s documentary Style Wars you talk about the how both graffiti letterforms & breakdancing motions express individual style as well as how you translates that into the artwork you paint today. Is this freestyle approach of ‘doing what comes naturally’ the basis of how you approach your art?
I believe that graff, b.boying and djing are kinetic language that in turn are related with each other. Motion, style and expression (or intent) are relayed information to the viewer participant audience.
It’s a sonic and visual form of hieroglyphics stemming from 21st century living and technosymbolic sigils created by sentinels and a sort of unique and personal magic is released. This is called ka. The creative force of the universe. This is why it appeals to so many people. This only comes naturally when you release your graff purist letter formats and regulations or when you toss out strict b.boy power moves for a more diverse portfolio. Seek your quiet kaos and dwell in it.
You write the stories from within... I am still on this journey and the journey is life. To the love below.
Peace doze
To see a gallery of work by Doze Green click here
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Tags: Art
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