Egs

Egs (1974, Helsinki) is a self-proclaimed graffiti anthropologist. He has been pivotal in the historical documentation and dissemination of the graffiti practice itself. An artist-archivist spurred by an intense desire to explore both the formal and folkloric truths of graffiti, to uncover it's deeply social and material foundations.

While Egs' output is becoming increasingly abstract, his ongoing illicit work has resulted from a long and intense study of the graffiti form, in which he has juxtaposed the different eras that he loves through his collagist style.

Egs started out in the mid 1980s as part of the first wave of graffiti in Finland. Since then he travelled the globe to both paint and investigate; to build relationships and share knowledge with many other artists.

One of his main motifs are world Maps, usually pen-and-ink renderings in his classic „inkbolt“ style, which are deeply influenced by the calligraphic essence of graffiti. Egs twists and reshapes the topography until it proclaims his own name. The maps exemplify Egs's inimitable chirographic style of graffiti. He use of the deep black Indian Ink in his fine art work forces the viewer to see the equivalent purity and complexity of his graffiti images.

Moreover through using the tool of a syringe to paint, he intimates both toward the outcast role of graffiti as well as the backstage environments where this art is often created. The maps egs has produced are not only an abstracted version of the world map; they also play with the idea of europeans conquering „new“ continents and dividing them with pen and ruler. They reference the power of ink to effect our environments, the ability of paint to radically change the way we understand space.