Bombing Science: First of all, who is Banek, how long has he been around and where is he from?
Banek: I’m from a small village near the sea in Mallorca…a place without much graffiti. The first time I saw graffiti was in Palma, the capital city of the island, and later visiting my grandparents who live in Hamburg, Germany. Part of my family in Mallorca is related to art, so I started to draw when I was a child. When I discovered graffiti, I immediately fell in love with it. That happened more or less nine years ago.
Bombing Science: How would you describe yourself as a writer?
Banek: I try to combine the pleasure of painting, just having a spray can in my hand and having fun, with my inner need of being proud with what I do. It means making a constant effort to evolve my style, to make it more powerful and personal.
Bombing Science: How did it all begin? Where did your style evolve from?
Banek: When I started I was completely fascinated by the traditional styles, so I started to do that. But I was also a fan of comics, sci-fi films and books, and all kind of fantastic and futuristic stuff. As time passed, those two ways converged in one. In the beginning, I mixed a few details with 3D style, and it slowly became a better mixture of both.
Bombing Science: What was your inspiration?
Banek: I felt inspired by the work of a lot of people, like the comics of Moebius and Serpieri, Giger or Beksinski’s paintings, books like Neuromancer or Nemesis, walls of Totem2, BomK, San…just to name a few of them. Anyway, there are a lot of other things that inspire me, a lot of interesting things to see, that’s why I love travelling.
Bombing Science: What is it that you like the most about travelling? Any places you’ve been had a significant influence on you or your art?
Banek: Knowing new places, new walls to paint, seeing different kinds of living…I think, if you keep your mind open, every new thing will make you learn and will have an influence on what you do. But I don’t feel a direct influence of travelling in my art, because it’s more introspective.
Bombing Science: Did you ever work traditional graffiti letters, or was it straight to the wild organic style you work with now?
Banek: At the beginning I tried with traditional wildstyle using outlines and plain colours, but very soon I switched to 3D. But painting 3D means spending a lot of time on every stick, just to get a simple realistic and deep volume, and I searched more details and textures. I want my letters to look like battered machinery or strange artificial living beings. Later, I changed my form of painting into executing all details in a more simple way, like in comic style, which allows me to make my pieces more detailed.
Bombing Science: Your painting can feel a bit gory and violent sometimes. Is there a message that you try to share through your work, or is it purely visual?
Banek: It’s part of both: I like this kind of dynamic and violent styles, and I love this kind of apocalyptic appearance too. But I also want to say something else, by showing my personal vision of things that worry me, like destruction of nature or mass control. I try to prove how people are converting the earth into a dustbin full of technological waste.
Bombing Science: Coming from an island, did you feel independent from the surrounding Europe, or was it the opposite, trying to be part of a bigger playground?
Banek: It has always been like a small ecosystem, but with the Internet, magazines, and all that information, it is very easy to know what is happening abroad. I was always trying to play in the “global playground”, but I think living on an island makes people more independent, more introspective.
Bombing Science: How would you differ Palma de Mallorca from the rest of Spain? Explain a bit of the local history.
Banek: People in Mallorca live more peacefully, because it is a quite place with a very good climate. There aren’t so many writers, so you can take all the time you want to finish a wall, which can remain uncovered for months. I don’t know who first started writing here, but there are a few people who have been painting for along time now: Ovas, Nase, Sice…There are also a few crews which I suppose are important on the island: SDS, OPP, PTB and Dispersos. Nowadays the scene is quite poor, but some people are still active in graffiti and other arts related to it, like design or tattoo: Yezek, Sath, Hock, Oasey, Llorar…
Bombing Science: Do you work other surfaces then walls? What are your preferred mediums?
Banek: I draw a lot with ink on paper, this is my second favourite technique. I also work on canvas with spraycans, as well as using the spraycan paint together with brush and thinner.
Bombing Science: What about bombing or other forms of illegal graffiti?
Banek: I’m mostly focussed on walls or abandoned areas were I can paint without problems. I like street bombing too, even though I don’t do it very constantly, because I had a few legal problems in the past. But sometimes I need to get out at night with silver cans and fatcaps…
Bombing Science: What would inspire you the most? A really beautiful lady or a dead body?
Banek: Maybe a beautiful living dead lady. Ha! Ha!
Bombing Science: Is your art a prophecy of the world’s end in December 2012?
Banek: In a very personal way, yes it is. I don’t know if it will be in December 2012, nor what it will be. But people need a change; they need to learn how to live with less waste, less useless consumer items… And big companies must stop their massive overproduction.
Bombing Science: Any advice for upcoming Spanish island writers?
Banek: Just keep painting, and try to do it the best you can.
Bombing Science: Finally, what is your bombing science?
Banek: My science is to be constant, try to keep being active.
Best regards to Nada, Los Niños de la Huerta, Reset, A1F2, all the people who painted with me, and also to those who like my work.
