Ryck

Originally from Brussels, I have been posing Ryck, Rike, Rikes, Skir and other variations for over 20 years now. This is my first pseudonym and I have been using it since I started. Over the years I have touched almost all the supports that graffiti can offer even if for a few years I have mainly been doing walls.

Fascinated by graffiti since childhood, I have long observed and admired the pioneers of Brussels before taking the plunge and putting my first graffiti and putting my finger in a gear that occupies a large part of my life.

The old-school of Brussels is also my first influence and certainly my major influence. At the time the Internet was not like today, graffiti magazines were expensive, so we consumed local. Subsequently I developed something else, tinged with cartoon, tattoo etc. and I tested a lot of things because I didn’t just want to reproduce or redo graffiti from that time. But despite everything I always had a soft spot for old-school graffiti and simple lettering to which I always came back and ended up settling there. Besides the approach of the letter, part of its structure (like the large serifs) it remains in a part of my graffiti, remnants of all the graffiti that I saw as a child and which made me want to ‘do and which have strongly influenced me. Obviously, we are always influenced by what we see and what we like, by the people we paint with, even in an unconscious way.

For a few years now, I have been practicing traditional graffiti in which the letter is the priority. For me lettering should have style as a whole, but each letter should have a solid foundation. Even if we remove the phases and other elements. I like it when it’s still readable, with good big, well-balanced letters. This is what I try to apply in my graffiti. A simple and relatively classic base that I modify and energize. On this basis, I add elements, phases to link, balance and complicate everything if necessary and according to the mood of the moment. The backgrounds, characters etc. are only used to highlight the letters.

For me if there is no letter, it is not graffiti …