Sean (Indianapolis) Graffiti Writer Spotlight

Sean Savant here. I am an artist/designer and part-time style writer. As an artist, I try to make things that don’t require “deep artistic sense” to enjoy and look at. A lot of the “art world” often times can come off as being too deep, or too intellectual for the average person to grasp and understand. This is why in my studio practice I focus on colorful abstractions, and in my graffiti work, I try to make works that anyone can look at and appreciate on a technical/aesthetic level.

I have been writing since Spring of 2013. So, 5 or so years. I’ve been an artist my whole life though. There are some artists (non-professional) in my family and I’ve always felt inspired by them growing up. Felt like I had a pen in hand sketching something all time.

I have been based out of Indianapolis, Indiana (USA) my whole life. We moved out near the cornfields when I was younger though. My high school was filled with hillbilly’s and all, y’all. haha. Then I moved into the city for college and have been living the urban/country back and forth life since. Pros and cons to both. But it’s made me who I am and shapes my outlook in many ways.

The list is dense. I’ve always had a strong conflict of inspiration between traditional barred graffiti, and wildstyle evil stuff. I love both of them equally. After a few years of painting and trying to carve a writing style of my own, I feel like I can now start to see and GREATLY enjoy graffiti that is absolutely nothing like what I tend to paint at all. Which is great! It’s made, being inspired, less of “I wish I could do that type of style one day,” to more of “That’s so sick. I should push myself to think about letters in creative ways that are also equally cool, but my own.” You feel me?

I remember when I first started writing, my good friend Grup and I went under a bridge to paint and walked up on an old 2000’s era Paser MFK piece. and our brains melted. His wildstyle ultra-mega-burners still to this day perplex me. His work is a good example of a style that I am VERY into, but have no drive to try to mimic or replicate on my own. I think that’s key in looking at graffiti, to distance what you strive to paint, vs what you greatly enjoy looking at and appreciating.

Stae2 GFR would be up at the top of the list as well. His works are more traditional and barred in nature, based strongly in NYC style writing traditions of letter bending, it seems. Dude’s been crushing color schemes and barred connections with ease for years. Always interesting to see what he whips up during his travels.

I could go on and on about other writers and artists I’m inspired by every day. But it would be an ear beating. I felt both of those two guys are great options for both traditional and wild categories, and sum up my viewpoint of inspiration.

In my opinion, my letters tend to lean more in the traditional style writing (80-90’s NYC) realm, with some new school aspects, and some evil shapes mixed in there as well. I try to make my work look crisp and digital.

I try to do my homework, study up, and read as much as I can about previously held regional styles in the pre-internet era. Since I’m younger, the concept of Regional styles perplexed me as It’s hard to imagine a world without the internet and zillions of banger pieces being posted daily that people pull inspiration from. It seems that regional styles have somewhat fallen by the wayside due to the Internet, which is a mega bummer. I try to learn in my own city about what it was like here during those times. Building a mental framework of past, present, and global style writings help inform things I want to do differently.

Thanks greatly. Have a good one!

-Sean Savant