Meeting Goddog

You’re sure to have seen his murals as you walk through the streets – for Parisians, he recently had a piece on on the Oberkampf wall – but you might not know that Goddog also paints on canvas. Artsper wanted to know more…

You are prolific, you’ve painted murals around the world. Where do you get your inspiration?

My primary inspiration is my travels, especially around Latin America and Asia, and I’m also inspired by the everyday, in fashion as well as in art. Masters like Matisse, M.C. Escher, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger and Kandinski are a big influence on me, but from a more contemporary point of view I love the minimalist Italian street art scene.

I’ve read that you started graffiti on the streets like many of your friends, how and why did you move from walls to canvases?

For me the two are completely different things, and I approach them in totally different ways. I came to painting through graffiti, but never thought I would make it my career… And yet here we are six years later. This passion has taken over my life, I live by it now.

I’m self-taught, I learnt by doing residencies at the Red Garden and at the Montresso Foundation in Morocco where they teach the old fashioned way, with long haired brushes. My canvases reflect my perfectionism and my stubbornness.

Do you have favourite cultural centres, and if so, why?

In Paris my all-time favourites are the Centre Pompidou and the Palais de Tokyo. At home in Avignon, I’d have to say the Yvon Lambert Collection.

What are you up to at the moment? Any news?

My exhibition ‘Substrat’ is currently on at the Urban Art Gallery at Villa Tschaen in Colmar. I’ve also been invited by the French Institutes in Kiev and Ukraine to go and paint two big walls there, across ten days.

Why Goddog?

I liked the palindrome, that’s all! It’s just wordplay.