If you ever find yourself walking (or cycling) the streets of Cambridge city; be it alone or in a gang of punch drunk revellers, you may or may not realise that you are being watched by an unlikely collective of not-from-this-dimension-characters who ponder life from the phone boxes, bus stop shelters and street lamp battery basins of this fair city. As indelible re-creations of life peppering otherwise grey and dismal settings, these ‘moments in time’ bring an extra dimension to the streets and grid patterns of this university town.

Mr Penfold is the artist who claims guardianship over the strange character based scrawlings that I describe. Born and bred in Cambridge, Penfold argues that his soul intention is to adorn the streets and lanes that he grew up in.

 It is fair to say that vandalism is the last thing on his mind.

In the wise words of Henri Lefebvre, street art and other such activities are an essential part of endeavouring to fully understand ones surroundings.

“Inasmuch as adolescents are unable to challenge either the dominant system’s imperious architecture of its deployment of signs, it is only by way of revolt that they have any prospect of recovering the world of differences.”

As an artist who has grown obsessed with the cultivation of a single crisp and distinct style, Mr Penfold is driven by an almost uncontrollable desire to develop his very own singular-yet-multi-faceted aesthetic. Born in the streets, raised in the magazine racks, Don’t Panic packs and music and illustration monthly’s, you could argue that Mr Penfold’s work is about to enter manhood.

‘Samebridge’ 2010

“I got out of the graffiti scene because I don’t draw for an ego trip, I draw because I can’t stop drawing.”

I am currently sat in a new exhibition space in the heart of Cambridge’s Romsey Town. ‘The District’ is an amalgamation of designers, writers and illustrators who have been plying their trade for the best part of five years. Amidst the macbook laden caverns and cubbyholes is a brand new exhibition space coined ‘The Frontroom’ and it is this space that plays host to the first solo UK show for the proclaimed ‘hidden gem of Cambridge’.

The space has been taken over by bowl cut laden, cock nosed caricatures. The walls have been comprehensively decorated with colourways that can only be described as fit for Andy Warhol’s studio or a travelling circus big top. I am nothing but blown away by the recently coined ‘clashimentary’ optics that dominate Mr Penfold’s artistic vision.

There are not enough spaces of this nature within the city of Cambridge. While the street-art-gallery-space crossover in London flourishes, Cambridge’s street artists find themselves shunned away from the comfortable confines of white cube conformity and back out on road. However, Mr Penfold’s ambitions are greater than your run of the mill stencil head or sticker fiend. It is no surprise then, that when a new creative space did (eventually) pop up it was only a matter of time before he made his first official hometown bow.

Mr Penfold; the younger brother of Hospital Records finest purveyors of liquid drum and bass Nu-Tone and Logistics has been carefully cultivating his style “ever since I was a kid” and it is fair to say that said cultivation process has been lengthy and measured. In a similar fashion to keeping a bonsai tree healthy and trim, Penfold has slowly but surely removed the unnecessary distractions and gimmicks from his work, leaving a strong linear style, devoid of clutter that truly is unique.

I managed to catch up with him as he put the finishing touches to the latest episode in his rise to all out clashimentary colour war.

Mr Penfold, you are a clearly an artist who is endeavouring to master a style. How far down the road do you think you have got?

Well, I’ve been drawing ever since I could first hold a pen. I first got into the street art scene through working in a skate shop and being exposed to skateboard graphics in old Thrasher magazines. I fell in love with the cartoon style and the gory tattoo graphics and these influences inspired me to start drawing my own characters. As far as how far down the road I have travelled, I don’t think you will ever get to that end point, you know?

This is true. But do you feel you have made inroads towards achieving your goals?

Art is just like music. Once you’ve gone platinum you always want to go the next step so as soon as you have done one show you want to do another that is bigger than the last. I don’t think you ever hit your peak. I think you can get to a comfortable level where you feel confident to take it in any direction and that is when you have to think wisely about which direction to take.

So you seem like you know where you want to go. You were saying that the skate scene had a heavy influence on your work, what else has influenced your efforts to get you to the place you are at today?

Growing up being surrounded by Hip Hop culture has had the biggest influence; the music, the graffiti scene, dabbling with B-boying for a while. With all these elements, you get to see the inside view of the scene and I grew more and more passionate about the visual side of the culture as time passed.

Have you ever dabbled in the graffiti scene?

Well I kinda had a legal route into it, so from the start I was always painting spots where I had been given permission to paint. But obviously, the taste for illegal stuff is always there and the adrenaline rush that comes with it.

That is something that I personally could never stomach, I always scarpered…

I never went full out and painted trains or anything like that, but I just wanted to draw and if I had the urge to draw on stuff illegally then I would.

But in terms of how you have made a name for yourself as being as an artist, where did that start? What sort of mediums did you first dabble with?

It has all come from my love for drawing, but it developed when I eventually hit a local stationary shop and bought some sticker paper, just crappy inkjet stuff and started drawing on that with marker pens, cutting stuff out and sticking it on electricity boxes outside the skate shop I worked in. I never used to travel far but that is how it all started.

Colour wheel – Silk Screenprint 2009

I was fascinated by hearing that elements of your style initially grew from observing real people and then working to caricature their mannerisms and so forth…

Definitely at the start. You wont see it as much now. However, all the stuff I took from those observations have evolved into almost logo-esque, signature parts of my work. The really distinctive elements of my characters; the nose, the cheeks and the eyes were inspired by those initial observations of real life. I work in a pub and spend so much time sitting behind a bar and you get these rosy cheeked, bloodshot eyed, bulbous nosed alcoholics getting smashed and I just sit there drawing them. There is something a lot more interesting about a haggard face, where you can see their life story through their haggardness. You can almost see their past through their faces, rather than a perfectly smooth skinned women covered in make up – different aesthetics you know?

Linked to this signature style of yours, would you care to define it? What is it that you are trying to achieve with your work?

My aim is to create really crisp images and with every piece that I do attempt to make it crisper and crisper and crisper. Someone mentioned ‘clashimentary’ to me recently when describing my style and I think it is a brilliant word. I like using colourways that aren’t necessarily the most obvious but have something strange about them that works. I like colours that react with each other. I stick with smooth and consistent black lines as this brings out the colourways even more so they can bounce off each other.

This cultivation of a single style is something that you have almost grown obsessed with, removing things that don’t work and refining elements that clutter your work. Are you trying to make it as simple as possible?

Everything that I do is trial and error. I would say that the success rate is about 50% most of the time and the other 50% is the stuff that I don’t rate a couple of days after doing it. I think it is the stuff that sticks that I soldier on with.

So tell us more about your toolkit, what do you like to work with?

Marker pens and paints all the way. For big scale stuff I use a lot of spray paint, emulsion and rollers, but for my canvas work I move away from cans of paint as you don’t have as much freedom compared with paintbrushes and pens.

In the sense that you cannot be as precise with spray paint?

Well you can if you have the can control, but if you have spent a month on a painting and you fuck it with some sloppy spraypaint, a lot of time and effort can quickly be trashed. As far as pens I use Edding permanent inks that produce a beautiful finish, but for less temporary stuff, like on walls for example, I use Posca pens which contain water based ink that dries waterproof with a matt finish.

In terms of this never ending quest that you are on, there are going to be artists out there that are looking to emulate a similar aesthetic. What can you tell us about your experience with trial and error that could help them reach their goals?

In terms of the line work that I do it is all about getting to know your tools. If I hear someone bigging up a new pen saying ‘Oh you’ve got to use this pen, you get such crisp lines, it’s beautiful’, I will get it but always be wary that on using it that its going to take me an untold amount of time to get used to. It could be hours, days, weeks, even months sometimes to suss out new kit. As far as advice I would say, pick some mediums, go with them, and practice.

What about collaborations? Who have you collaborated with and who do you aspire to collaborate with?

If you asked me this a year ago I would have reeled off a list of names, but over the last year I have been lucky enough to meet those people. People like Flying Fortress, who I haven’t collaborated with yet but have a joint show in the pipeline with in Dusseldorf later this year. I’ve done stuff with The London Police and have also worked with Will Barras. A collaboration for me doesn’t necessarily have to mean working on the same piece together, it’s working on something together. So whether it’s getting an artist that I have admired for a long time into the studio and helping them to create a screenprint, I back that as a collaboration in itself, like mastering an EP for example.

Untitled – T-shirt design 2010

Tell us about your new show ‘Samebridge’ and how that came about?

I was born and raised in Cambridge and I love this city, I want to bring my kids up here. It is such a beautiful place, but I never saw a flourishing scene and the inspiration that I took from other people’s work was never linked to this city. There was always the old school graffiti stuff but I wouldn’t say that linked directly to my style. With regards to the show, I basically wanted to bring something to the city that brightened it up. The title of the show is linked to my time here. All your mates move off to Bristol, London, Brighton, wherever and when you speak to them and they ask ‘how’s Cambridge?’ - its always like ‘Samebridge’ man. Nothing ever changes in this city. It’s a beautiful place but it’s very dull at the same time.

You’ have to make your own fun…

Completely.

Anyway, I found this installation space just round the corner from my home and spoke to them about the possibility of letting loose and they agreed so I painted everything and went mental basically.

Do you take inspiration from sources outside the street art scene? Fine artists? Photographers?

Of course. Working in a print studio I get to work with a lot of minimalist artists, a lot of older artists who have been in the game for 50 years plus. These guys know where they are going and even though they are so successful they still freestyle most of the time. Everything they do is a progression and they will never stop progressing with their work. Working with artists like this and learning from them has had a huge influence on my own work.

What does the future hold for Mr Penfold? What can we expect to see from you?

Last year I decided that I wanted to be known as an artist rather than an illustrator and this has seen me work more and more on hand done projects. I will never stop doing computer illustration as it is another medium and is a lot of fun, but I decided that I wanted to do more painting and outdoor work, stuff that people can see in the flesh.

That sounds like a nice progression and switch of focus…

Yeah, so the future for me holds more exhibitions, lots more outdoor work and pushing myself as hard as I can to achieve my goals.

Do you have any more upcoming shows in the pipeline?

Samebridge runs until early April. I am also exhibiting late March at the Montana paints flagship store in Nottingham. This is quite a big show for me as it feels like I am getting recognition from the graffiti scene, which when you are involved in the street art side of things is a big deal because the graffiti scene tends to frown upon street art a little bit. Also, my joint show with Flying Fortress in Dusseldorf is planned for April.

What is that beef all about?

Well both scenes dabble within very close proximity of each other and sometimes ‘street artists’ step on graffiti artists’ toes without realising as the politics thing doesn’t seem to be as big of a thing in street art.

That is something that dominates the graffiti scene, the whole politics side…

Yeah, I think that is what runs it or at least drives it forward a lot of the time.

It makes me think of surfers, the whole ‘you new kids aren’t allowed to surf our waves’ ethos.

Well the film ‘Warriors’ describes it perfectly. Not necessarily to the extremes of, well sometimes to the extremes of killing each other, but I got out of the graffiti scene because I don’t draw for an ego trip, I draw because I can’t stop drawing.

Would you say that you draw everyday?

Everyday.

But you are still involved in the street scene, you are still out there, what is it about this compulsion to hit the streets?

I love stickers and have been collecting them since I was a kid, football stickers to skateboarding stickers, you name it. In terms of hitting the streets, it is a form of publicity as you are essentially pushing something in someone’s face. Not everyone notices lampposts for example, but if something grey and dull can be improved with a nice colourful sticker then that is nothing but a good intervention in my opinion.

But that is not an urge to vandalise is it? That is more an urge to decorate and adorn. Would you say that urge is linked to your upbringing?

Well Cambridge is a very swanky, clean-cut city, but there is also a lot of history here and I would never think about putting a sticker on an 800 year old university building as they are the institutions that make the city what it is. I wouldn’t want to destroy that. But lampposts and electricity boxes are as ugly as shit, and this is what I attack.

So would you describe your work as an amalgamation of single characters that make up one big family? How do you go about linking the pieces you produce?

Like I said earlier, the logo elements of the nose, eyes and cheeks run through my work consistently. I have never thought about my characters as members of a big, extended family, I just concentrate on the characteristics that work. If it was a big family then it would be hideous because I never draw women and I don’t want to endorse a massive family of blokes, but I do see them as a big crew or posse when displayed together.

Carhartt Zurich Poster – 2009

I like the solitary element that runs through your work, in the sense that you focus on one character at a time and on occasions they come together…

Yeah, they all look like they are pondering dark thoughts and there is a real sense of loneliness and isolation within each piece I create.

Almost like a million faces that you can trace back to one?

Well there must be that one face somewhere that you can trace it back to. But again, each one of them is like a step in the staircase as far as how the style evolves.

So what is your favourite colour?

Black, because it goes on everything and looks sick.

My favourite colour combination has always been pink and blue but I have played that out a little too much. At the minute I have been loving orange even though I have hated that colour all my life. But I associate it with the comedy fake tan element of 21^st century living. As they say, you can’t polish a turd but you can roll it in fake tan.

This is true! Lastly, Any big ups? Shout outs?

I want to send a big up to my lady, the amazing Ivana, the Cambridge people that are responsible for keeping this city exciting, all the Spoonfed crew, the infamous SMB crew, just all the mans really. Watch this space!

j

To check out more of Mr Penfold’s work visit his website, Flickr account and blog.

j

Interview and Photos by Thom Hawkins