Artist Spotlight: Dark aka Darksnooopy
Welcome to my final artist spotlight of 2017! I can’t believe it’s been a year. I was just looking back at all of the amazing artists I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. It’s been such an honor to get a glimpse into their lives. Today I would like to introduce you to Dark (AKA Darksnooopy).
Dark (@darksnooopy)
Dark is a calligraphy-inspired street artist from Paris, France. I met Dark on Instagram a few months back and recently learned that we have some mutual friends in the calligraphy community. Small world!
Dark’s work is an expressive blend of abstract calligraphy, street art, and sometimes a little bit of Snoopy (you know — the iconic Peanuts character)!
Thank you for taking the time to speak with me! Would you mind speaking about your background and how you got into art and calligraphy? It appears that you are also a very active street artist?
It’s a pleasure mate! Ok, so I began to draw by seeing a friend always making graffiti everywhere, and that gave me the desire to do it too. Then, after a few years, I started to involve myself in graffiti even more and began to go in some hidden spots to practice with spray cans and draw some snoops and graffiti on walls. Soon after, I met a calligrapher in my design school. I worked with him for a few months and I realized that I wanted to do more with calligraphy and to find my style by mixing calligraphy with some design and graffiti figures to make it personal and appealing to everyone. So I turned it into artworks, in the streets of the world or in my lab and I’ve worked as much as possible since then.
Where are you located and what is the art scene line there. Are you close with other creatives that help drive your creativity?
I’m from Paris and I still live here. This is a beautiful city and art is something really important for French people so this is a really good place for me to practice my art. I work sometimes with some street artists’ friends, making some collaborations and talking about some artistic topics or sharing tips. This is really good to improve my creativity.
I’m a huge fan of your abstract calligraphy work. What inspired you to begin pursuing this style?
As far as I remember, I’ve always been a typography lover. This is something really fascinating and attractive to me. Already when I was making only graffiti, I was searching for better letter forms. When I started calligraphy, I wanted to create a multicultural and personal universe by mixing different calligraphy shapes, letters, or numbers coming for everywhere, and in order to gather people from everywhere. So there aren’t some words or sentences in my works (expect when I hide some inside).
I love that Snoopy makes a subtle appearance in some of your pieces! Are there any reasons for this or are you just a big Peanuts fan? 🙂
I’m not particularly a big Peanuts fan but I love Snoopy’s life philosophy, and he is cool to draw and easily adaptable to what I want. I can easily insert him in some of my work and see all the reactions he can create in people’s mind. Moreover, I’m a huge fan of cartoons, so this is a little homage to one thing that completely ran my childhood.
What would you say is your favorite project that you’ve done?
For now, particularly this year, I’ve done a lot a wonderful and really interesting projects such as a Street Art Festival for children that have some language problems or an event where I made some live body painting on two models and a live canvas. I would say that all the projects are really cool and help me to realize my passion while developing my technique, so I enjoy them all as much as I can and I hope things will continue this way for a long time.
It’s obvious that you’re familiar with a very diverse set of tools. Spray paint, chalk, markers, ink… what are your favorites?
In fact, I love to practice with some different tools and find some new amazing ways to create new shapes or textures to share. I like to be continuously in contact with new materials and techniques to find some new ways to work, and improve myself in different styles to diversify my art. But paint brush and acrylic markers are still my favorites. The bigger they are the more I like to work.
I just found out recently that we have a mutual friend (Valentin Dragomirescu). You’re going to be a part of his big calligraphy book project, right? Do you have any other big aspirations you’re working towards with your artwork? And if so, do you mind sharing?
Yes, I’ve been in contact with Valentin for a few weeks, and yes, I will be part of his calligraphy book project. Art is something really important for me and I like to be continuously immersed in it, so I have a lot of inspirations from everywhere and every artistic movements, particularly Suprematism & Contemporary art. Moreover, N.S.Meulman and all the calligraffiti artists are really fascinating for me.
What can the world expect from you in the next year/couple years?
I would like to continue to do what I love the most and share good vibes with everyone in this world.
You can follow Dark (AKA Darksnooopy) on Instagram via (@darksnooopy).