Vase grafffiti, 2022

Julien Lebbihi  

Born in 1979, K'trY, alias Julien Lebbihi (or LE2BHI), has always been attracted to graffiti, tagging and, by extension, all kinds of calligraphy. In search of a controlled freedom of the line. 

As a ceramist, his graphic work on clay leads him to explore other supports.

Julien Lebbihi discovered graffiti when he was eight years old. From then on, he never stopped looking at graffiti on the walls, then their little brothers, the tags. His nickname evolved from King, to King Tryvers, contracting to K'try. He then adopted another nickname: Dago, in homage to Dago Red by J. Fante, a pejorative term that discriminates against Italian-Americans that can be translated as "big red", the equivalent of our wop or macaroni. Dago is a way of saying "I'm on the fringe, you despise me but fuck you". He uses one or the other pseudo according to his graffiti desires.

He has never stopped graffiti. And it is by linking graffiti and ceramics that everything made sense.

Artistically, Julien Lebbihi compares himself to a solitary animal. A little influenced by the memory of impressionist painters in his childhood, he cites Sisley. But also Rembrandt and Turner. Today he follows Lady K, JonOne and many others. As a teenager, his heroes were the P19, the crew of graffiti artists (Pest, Penr, spyr, Bab2 etc.) who operated in the southern suburbs, near Massy Palaiseau. 

In graffiti, he is never satisfied with a letter until he can give it an emotion: anger, sadness, shyness, joy etc... When he paints, Julien looks for the balance, the work of the form that these heaps of lines compose.