The artist Gaia doesn’t just design pieces for museums or galleries. He makes the art of the people. Art that will have a place in the daily lives of commuters gazing out of train windows, or neighbors as they walk to the store. Large-scale pieces that quickly become integral to the communities where they appear.
This is a responsibility and challenge that isn’t lost on Gaia. He puts a copious amount of research into every project, to ensure his pieces will engage and speak to locals. And he deeply cares about these communities, about gentrification, and the political, social, and racial issues that neighborhoods are currently dealing with.
When I spoke to Gaia about his work, I discovered a man who was deeply thoughtful — often taking long pauses to collect himself as he mused on his connection to the places he works in, on creating provocative art that also satisfies people, and on the difficulties he faces as a large-scale muralist.
What brought you to Street Art and do you remember a specific piece that really inspired you when you were just starting out?
My genesis story begins with being interested in graffiti as a rich kid in Manhattan. Then meeting a gentleman named Cheekz on MySpace. He introduced me to Spring Street which was a seminal early “street art exhibition” mounted by Wooster Collective in a building that was going to be demolished. It was a last minute exhibition that was really unbelievable. He specifically introduced me to the likes of Swoon, Bass, and Shepard Fairey.
I think, by far, the most impactful person on my work and it’s trajectory has been Swoon. I was flabbergasted by how beautiful the images were and I asked Cheekz online, in our various conversations, how she could create something so detailed and yet so quickly. And then he changed my life by showing me the application of using wallpaper adhesive to put up posters. That cracked a little hole in my brain and I jumped down that rabbit hole.
What are the challenges of creating something so massive?
I have transitioned obviously from a predominantly illegal practice. I derived a lot of my income and capital from financial instruments as paintings, and I’ve moved entirely away from that to a position that’s more pertinent to your question which is mural making and sanctioned works. My practice is now bifurcated to two polar positions. One is community oriented, mural work, and the other is political graffiti as anonymous author. I do also engage in experimentation with the streets, that’s still an option, but I’ve really bifurcated.
From an illegal context, that’s one journey. The one that you’re discussing, the route that I’ve taken in terms of working on the 17 story scale, the most difficult aspect is not the execution of the painting. The most difficult aspect is creating a piece that as an outsider resonates with a local environment and a local population. One that is sensitive to the environment and yet is provocative.
How do you pick a neighborhood? And how do you get to know the neighborhood before you design your piece?
Generally, the neighborhood picks me. I, for better or for worse, am deeply a part of the street art festival circuit. And so generally, organizations and non-profits, local governments, state department, et cetera, you know, hotels, hospitality, and the like, they reach out to me and then I do top down research or apply the research from both directions. I do the primary and secondary resources that explain the history of a country, of a nation, of a region, of a city, of a neighborhood. Taking multiple different angles in regards to the architectural vernacular, the ethnic composition, the political imagination and theory emanating from that place.
Also, I try or endeavor to run these insights by representatives of the local community or contacts within that local community who may actually not be seen as representative politically. One has to do a drag net of research and then of course ensure that one can in fact hit the nail on the head with those that will be living with the work.
Is there a neighborhood or a particular project in a country that really, you felt like you nailed it on the head? One recently that really resonated with the neighbors and the neighborhood?
I don’t think that it’s possible to make everyone happy. You know, this trope, you can’t make everyone happy, that’s the conundrum of working publicly.
I think in terms of the confluence of the celebration of identity, whilst also working investigatively. Also, making people happy versus challenging them to the point of discomfort. These are a bunch of different things to balance. I guess the metric of successful work doesn’t necessarily have to be whether you’ve made everyone happy or not. It depends on who you want to make happy and that you spoke to them eloquently.
Admittedly, most of my murals are born between conflict regarding representation. I would like to say that my portrait of Henrietta Lacks adjacent to Johns Hopkins in East Baltimore was a fabulous project insofar that I was able to work with a local curator, I was able to follow her lead on the content and then develop an aesthetic solution to the content that she suggested. We mounted the project in a pretty holistic fashion that (alongside a couple different other public artists) ended beautifying this one block, very wholly. Considering my whiteness and my European settler-ness, I am intrigued by the interwoven histories of all of the various peoples that have defined the Americas and more specifically the United States.
And so, ingratiating that property with a local institution that is so powerful, Johns Hopkins University, did, hopefully, position the property owners to benefit from the development that is occurring in the middle East of Baltimore, but also did take away partially from the shine of the miraculous and incredible story of Henrietta Lacks in the first place.
There are some people who believe that I shouldn’t have included a former slave owner who eventually disavowed the property he inherited. At the same time, maybe one could say that he was someone who maybe had set an example for other landed gentry in Maryland. You know, I’m very comfortable within this extremely uncomfortable position of conflict and balance. I’m not radical in a lot of my positions in regarding to what I paint. That, to me, was a very successful project insofar that I made the property owner very happy but also might not have been insofar that it also offended some people who may have thought that I was distracting from Henrietta Lacks’ story.
My only solace in that circumstance is that, of course, the estate and the family of Henrietta Lacks did approve the design.
In terms of actually making some people happy and really hitting the nail on the head in terms of specificity, I did a project for the Coney Island art walls underneath the curatorial direction of Jeffrey Deitch and I noticed that the art wall part that had been created as a little Trojan horse, per se, of gentrification attracted a lot of passersby who were going to the beach and to the various amusement parks. I noticed that people’s ultimate response to these works was actually taking selfies in front or their most … The most common reaction to the work was to include the self in the photo of the work. Like “I was here.”
I did a piece where I took local residents and visitors to Coney Island and also visitors to the park (even more Meta). And I went on Instagram and I did 11 portraits of people who had taken selfies in and around the Coney Island art walls but more properly.
So that was cool because I was not being disingenuous. I was not exhibiting a disdain for people, I was simply celebrating and or observing the interaction of people with the art work and then reinstating it back into that place in a way that I thought was conceptually very intriguing and also aesthetically you know, interesting. That was one of the only times I’ve made people happy, not confused.
You talked about gentrification and I know you live in Baltimore, how does your work interact with gentrification and what are your feelings as you watch the city change?
Yeah, if in fact you think it’s pertinent to ask a white settler how they feel on gentrification, then I’m more than happy to answer that question. I am extremely conflicted. I know that like any tool, it can be utilized for a wide array of different applications. So I want to be involved and I want to be dirty and I want to be abreast of the gentrification of our inner cities throughout the United States. Because I want to bear witness and I want to respond accordingly. And I do find that there is an extreme lack of self-reflection amongst many of the authors and artists who are invited to these festivals. The only way I cannot succumb to total guilt by suicide is to try to promulgate and push a changing of that culture or maybe more sensitivity to celebrating those that already exist in an environment, in a neighborhood, and in a place rather than speaking to a future audience.
I’m extremely conflicted and that cognitive dissonance does make it difficult on the day to day. Look, ultimately investment is super important. No one’s knocking investment but we want equitable investment. Apparently, those that are in control of the capital and the local governments tend to stress how impossible it is to actually have a heterogeneous and equitable society. But we know that’s patently false and so it’s important to move and guide the direction of investment and to apply pressure to that and to demand it, especially of those that are invading new territories.
We have a massive inversion demographic shift from the suburbs, back into the city.
Right.
After 50 years of ethnic strife caused by white peoples’ inability to deal with the civil rights movement and multiculturalism and globalization and multinationalism. Those people should be making the demands and making certain sacrifices so that they can have a very healthy community. One that’s not divested and one whose complexion doesn’t change overnight with new investment.
From a selfish point of view, the investment in my neighborhood stands to benefit me but my conscience says that it should be available to all members of our society.
What are you working on right now with your art?
I am investigating the dynamic of decolonization and the trinity of the slave/settler/native dynamic that continues to play out even in theaters throughout the world. Becoming familiar with the language of decolonization and investigating different approaches and researching, obviously, the composition and above all, the places I’m supposed to be visiting in Spring and Summer.
I guess continuing my research in regards to how globalization and economic policy affects the spiritual existence of the common person.
Follow Gaia on Instagram or on his website.
