Cheak Hong Ian
He started off as a petty vandal back in 1997, painting his love for graffiti in alleyways under the cover of darkness. But 28-year-old graffiti artist Sufian Hamri, better known by his moniker TraseOne, now works his magic openly in the heart of town and even gets paid for it in conjunction with the ongoing Singapore Arts Festival!
As part of the Singapore Street Festival’s (SSF) 19-day long POWer Grafitti street art showcase, Sufian has taken under his wing 8 teams of budding student graffiti artists from polytechnics and the Institute of Technical Education (ITE), mentoring them in completing an 12 ft by 8 ft panel each based on the Festival’s theme, ‘POWER TO D PEOPLE’.
POWer Grafitti participants will be joined by acclaimed French graffiti artist Sarah Normand aka SOTE , who’ll be joining them after arriving in Singapore on Jun 2.
Not A Pretty Picture At The Start
Sufian, who conducts art workshops in schools and paints murals full-time, practically lives and breathes graffiti and has witnessed how this form of expression has gradually become accepted as an art form in conservative Singapore.
He recalls how he had a run-in with the law 7 years back during the Hari Raya/Christmas festive season at Boat Quay. While spraying graffiti on some shop door shutters in the Boat Quay with a few friends, a couple of police officers walked in on them.
“I think they were in a festive mood as well. All they did was take down our particulars, jokingly told us that we had an hour to clean up the mess we made and left. So we spent 1 hour trying to scrape off the paint without thinner and using soap and water,” Sufian tells UrbanWire with a laugh, as he reminisces the old days.
The lot of them ended up making the paintwork looking even messier than when they’d started. At the 1 hour mark, they decided to make a getaway and hope that the officers wouldn’t hunt them down.
“They didn’t pursue the matter, thank God!” he says with a cheeky smile.
Turning Over A New Leaf
That close shave didn’t stop Sufian from pursuing his love of graffiti, but he turned to more legal means instead, designing stage backdrops, joining graffiti competitions and helping the National Youth Council organize graffiti-related events.
Sufian then went on to take first places in the 2002 and 2003 Hip-Hop Fest open category graffiti competitions organised by Beats Society. He even went on to further his art education in Laselle-SIA’s School of Fine Arts, graduating with BA (Hons) in Fine Arts.
New Blood In Graffiti
However, when UrbanWire went down to *scape on Wednesday, 7 of the 8 panels were blank and only the Graffiti Club of ITE College Central (Bishan) were starting on their piece because most of the other groups couldn’t make it down on most of the stipulated weekdays.
“We try to fit the time schedules of the artists. They’ll be more people this weekend!” Sufian promises.
For the Graffiti Club of ITE College Central (Bishan) which comprises of former secondary school art students, this showcase is a chance to promote themselves as the only club of its kind in ITE, to interact with other graffiti artists, as well as to have this opportunity to be under the guidance of professional graffiti artists like TraseOne.
“We want to show that we ITE students excel in the arts too and are not just ‘hands on’ and ‘minds on’,” Muhd Masyfu, the club’s vice-chairman, tells UrbanWire.
This Product Design student is part of an 8-person team of beginner graffiti artists working on a tribute mural to John Lennon , the original singer of the song “Power To the People” , which is the inspiration behind the theme of SSF 2008.
Catch the graffiti artists in action from 12 noon till 9pm daily at the POWer Grafitti which is currently held at *scape till May 31, after which it will move to Plaza Singapura until June 8.
You can also see the other panels completed at the earlier venue of Suntec City on display there.
This article is part of UrbanWIres 9-week SIngapore Arts Festival 2008 special.
Get all the latest Arts Fest updates and reviews on UrbanWire.