Ripo: The images you put outdoors often reflect and blend in with their environment both aesthetically and culturally. How are you approaching the images you show in your indoor exhibitions? Can you discuss some of the themes you're focusing on for your work at you upcoming show, Community Service?

C215: Painting in the streets puts limits on you, as far as the number of colours you can bring with you, how much time you have to paint, and even the subject matter since I like to put a link between the stencils I paint and the context around where I paint them. In a gallery it is completely different and you have absolutely no limitations. You can use as many layers as you want and create pieces out of any context, so working in a more decorative way. The show at Galerie Itinerrance is special since I will present a lot of paintings on found objects, and on the second floor mainly portraits of my daughter, cut off from any context. I will try to sum up my skills, from the streets to gallery, using the gallery space to show a progression from contextual art in the streets to a more abstract one in the gallery.

R: Do you ever find the use stenciling to be limiting? Or, if you were to never be able to cut another stencil where could you see your work going?

C: I would not have been an artist if not for stencils. I can say I found my tool and explored its limits and new ways to use it. If someday I stopped using stencils I would certainly go back to writing, but not to any other kind of visual art. I can only get my style with stencils, and nothing else can provide me with such a result.

Stencils have no limits. You can get any effect or style through stencils. This tool is really under valued. With spraypaint alone you cannot go so small, and not so quick. I see less limits in stencils than I see with free hand painting.

R: Color is a major element of your work. Some of the new pieces are exploding with some pretty beautiful combinations. Can you discuss how you approach color in an individual piece or just in general with your work?

C: Color is a kind of make up for the image, the line and idea being more important to me. I combine colors scientifically, just like someone playing guitar cannot just play any random note but rather has to coordinate to get harmonies. I try to respect the subject, and support the expressive atmosphere with colors: bright flashy ones for kids, naturalistic ones for heavy social subjects. At the end, what is important is freedom.

R: Do you have any specific inspirations for the different color palettes you use?

C: In the past I have worked for an interior design company as an export manager, so I was used to creating many color combinations to show how the fabrics can coordinate with each other. I kept a lot of colorways from this period in my life. I have found new ones as well but most of my education in color coordination came from that job. Maybe this shows that an artist has to gather his whole life's experience in his work to be truly expressing him or herself in a personal way.

R: You seem to be always traveling. What are some of the countries you've visited this year?

C: This year has been pretty quiet. My daughter is 7 years old and I have tried to stay more home to see her and enjoy this beautiful period in her life. Despite this I have been to England, Italy, Netherlands, Russia and Morocco.

R: Which was the one that surprised you the most?

C: Traveling to Russia is always impressive but it is not easy to paint there without being freaked out by the police. Everyone is completely paranoid about the police violence in this country, and with reason. Because my art is figurative and more classical it is easier to understand so I got a lot of good feed back from the Russian people. After the Biennale of young contemporary artists in June, I came back for a commission in September and I feel like I will come back here again soon.

R: How did your first monograph come about with Criteres Editions? And how long have you been working on this new book?

My first booklet with Criteres went really well and they reprinted it after only 2 months. I am very happy with it and consider it as a little portfolio that I often show to people when they want to stop me from painting in the streets. This new book is really special since I had to do very little to put it together. It is a collective book and the only material I provided was an interview for the introduction, and of course the concept. Street art is nothing if not a collective art. Wherever I paint, I am not creating the context and the preexisting layers where I place my stencils. Then at the end someone else takes a picture and spreads it around the world. I like to lose possession of my works. I did not have complete control over the results shown in the book, the editor and the photographers I chose did the work alone and with complete freedom. Some street pieces are shown by a few of the photographers, each with a different point of view. It's good to see your own works through a kaleidoscope.

R: Your new book will include testimonials from some dedicated street art photographers who obviously find and appreciate your work everywhere they've traveled to. If you could choose anyone in the world to write an introduction to your next book, who would it be?

I would be very pretentious and unfair not to be happy with the introduction of this book by Steven Harrington from Brooklyn Street Art, and the preface from Sara and Marc Schiller from Wooster collective. I thank them a lot for their attention on my works and how they express it with their literary talent. For my last book I already had the honour to have a preface from my friend Logan Hicks. So now, at my level, it becomes hard to find anybody better. Time will tell who it will be. As time will also tell if I will be able to prepare a new book in the near future.

R: Some last words of wisdom for someone who wants to travel the world making artwork?

I would love to be wise, but I think I am just crazy. I could tell them to be careful because laws and social habits are not the same all over the world. So I would tell them to respect the different cultures they come across. And then come back home with new inspirations, and a deeper understanding of themselves and the world. An odyssey is trip outside of yourself that eventually brings you much deeper inside of yourself.

see more work by C215 on his flickr page here.

all photos above by vitostreet

C215, Community Service
Paperback / 128 pages / 22 x 22 cm
Introduction by Steven Harrington from Brooklyn Street Art
Prefaced by Marc & Sara Schiller from Woostercollective, and Thierry Froger,
collector.
Upcoming in January 2011 in bookstores

WHAT: "Community Service," Book Launch and Exhibition

WHEN: Opening on November 12 at 6 pm. The show will be up through December, 25, 2010

WHERE: Galerie Itinerrance. 7bis, rue René Goscinny. Paris, FRANCE

for more information go to:

www.itinerrance.fr