SKEN

SKEN – Located Melbourne Australia. I started bombing at the end of 1998 but went hard in 1999 through to 2001 and unfortunately was informed on and was caught, Police told me to go hit the train lines instead of the streets… so I did. I laid low for 2 years and started again in 2003-2004 with different aliases, I then started Sken in 2005 I think? and tried to keep steady regardless of what life throws at me.
My passion for graffiti started way before the internet was a thing, so I guess I grew up with the older roots, doing loops daily, skipping school, getting stoned, getting up with my Stainer on the Hitachi and Comeng trains (late 90’s/ Circa 2000) in Melbourne, Australia, back then was so rad, cameras only started to be introduced in the Comeng trains but we could still sneak our Met Cards (Train Tickets) over the cameras to still get it done, but then learnt they were dud cameras… they didn’t even work to begin with! But then they actually did eventually work and cameras were introduced at train stations like a prison. Although I loved my bombing back then I found it got me real red hot, really quick so I started piecing seriously, although life got me caught in some rabbit holes with crime, I used drugs as an escape so I was pretty out of it when I think back, but stopped drugs in 2007 and was sentenced in 2010 with convictions. My life has been great ever since, I made graffiti my number 1… It is my pure passion in life and ill never stop until I have to stop! Graffiti saved me.
Influences for me vary, as a child my father was a fire fighter and I used to catch the train with my parents in 1989- 90? KORE RDC did big block buster pieces with old school fire hydrants in the middle, I use to point it out every time id catch the train and id wait at the window looking for it. That was probably my very first influence of graffiti, it had a huge impact on me as a child.
Then as I grew up, I slowly learnt more about graffiti in general and I seen some of the best graffiti be done (for the time) around Melbourne. For me, Wild style and block buster pieces are important, Block buster shows your skills at letter structure and wild style shows the style made with letter structure.
I grew up on the east side of Melbourne around Frankston, Dandenong & Belgrave at different periods.
WCA, RDC, CI, KSA, FMC & TAB crews all had their own unique inputs for graffiti/ Aust Hip-hop in general in my opinion, from piecing, bombing, painting trains & productions, there are a lot of writers out of these crews I generally looked up to as kings (way too many to mention) But I guess I was influenced to try gain style like the older heads, I’m not sure what it was but it motivated me, style is developed over a long period of time with sketching, and just simply bombing numerous amounts of paper to gain your hand style… I was a toy… and I still feel I haven’t progressed to where I need to be… you never stop learning regardless of where you’re at, I just wanted to be as good as all the kings I looked up to, I sketched flat out from 2000 – 2005 then I used painting without a sketch as another way to gain my style, I still have a good 100 sketches from that circa. I still feel I’m not there yet; I feel my style is intricate, sometimes I actually find it annoying to paint, it irritates me when I’m not in the mood and I’m forcing my self to paint trying to keep up with time which is something I don’t have these days but then again, I could be pushing myself to be more creative without knowing it? I paint better when I paint real slow, I could spend 3 days on one piece and id be more satisfied, than me spending 6-8 hours rushing on one piece trying to get it done.
I’m unsure where graffiti will take me but I’m not going anywhere any time soon. I love my raw Graff also as that’s what it’s about too, that’s where it started for me, to just trash everything in sight.
Stay tuned for whats coming next. SKEN FMC CSM.