an obsessive-compulsive patient
Painted the nightmare of intensive phobia
If you had a mansion, how would you decorate it?
Can you tolerate someone scribbling on the wall?
British artist Sam Cox bought a villa worth 1.35 million pounds (11.14 million yuan), spent two years painting all corners of the home with black and white graffiti, and recently completed it.
From ceilings, stairs, flower beds, to bathtubs, sofas, refrigerators… up and down, inside and out, no one is spared.
Some people looked at it and called it “cool”, and some people felt that intensive phobia was about to be committed.
The one who was the most unhappy was the former owner. Before selling the house, he told me a thousand times, and everything else was easy to say, that is, not to paint on the house, but I ended up running into a graffiti madman.
For Cox, graffiti gives him a sense of security. “My dream is to live in a house full of graffiti.”
Cox, better known by the name Mr. Doodle (Mr. Doodle), was only 28 years old and became popular all over the world with a marker pen.
In March this year, Shanghai K11 held a personal exhibition “Mr. Graffiti in Love” for him. Even the subway entrance and outdoor square were covered with graffiti, which left a deep impression on many Shanghai people.
His works are not only amazed by ordinary people, but also favored by collectors, and have been auctioned for a high price of more than 7 million yuan.
In his world, art is not difficult or obscure, it can be just plain interesting.
01
Wake up every day surrounded by graffiti
“It was heaven for me”
The graffiti house of Mr. Doodle and his wife is located in Kent, England, and is particularly special among the surrounding English country houses.
Cartoon patterns and lines, like growing creepers, cover every inch of the wall, even chimneys and flower beds.
The atmosphere is all set here, how can the car parked at the door not fit in with the group? Do some graffiti too!
Walking into the villa, the obsessive-compulsive disorder is probably very comfortable, and the patient is already crying.
The whole family really can’t find any blank corner, and there are circles and circles everywhere.
But if you look closely, you will find that people are not graffiti, and each room has its own graffiti theme.
The theme of the bedroom is dreams, so I painted a lot of strange dream creatures: UFOs, aliens, ghosts…
In order to fit into the room, the pajamas must of course be doodle suits from head to toe.
Some people worry that they can’t sleep in such an environment, but this is actually the first room Mr. Doodle has remodeled at home, because he enjoys waking up every morning surrounded by graffiti, “It’s heaven for me. “
The kitchen and dining room’s graphics are mainly gourmet, with pizza, burgers, hot dogs, and more.
Take a closer look at these kettles, spatulas, and dessert plates, and the design of each small item has been carefully thought out.
However, since he painted on the stove and range hood, Mr. Doodle is not sure whether they can still be used normally, so he has never dared to cook a meal once.
The bathroom has a marine theme with paintings of various sea creatures.
Noah’s Ark is painted on the corridor. Stairs represent heaven and hell.
It’s all hand drawn by Mr. Doodle. In order to complete this large project, he used a total of 900 liters of white latex, 401 cans of black spray paint, 286 bottles of black paint and 2,296 pens.
He and his wife are convinced the experience of living here must be fun, and plan to move in within a few weeks.
But there are a lot of people who can’t appreciate it. The reporter who came to interview said euphemistically: “Maybe not everyone will like this work, in fact, I am quite dizzy now.”
No matter what others think, for Mr. Doodle, “This house was just the beginning of my childhood dream of doodles the entire planet.”
02
From “mentally ill” to artist
There are many “bear kids” who like to doodle everywhere, but few of them turn it into an obsession like Mr. Doodle.
At the age of 2, he fell in love with Tu Tu and painting, and painted the walls, floors and furniture of his home. Even in schools and fast food restaurants, they couldn’t help but take out a pen to “sabotage”, which gave parents a headache for a while.
Later, Mr. Doodle realized that it was probably a kind of “painting obsessive-compulsive disorder”, and it would be painful if he stopped painting.
In the process of growing up, this symptom still does not relieve. At the craziest time, he had to draw at least 14 hours a day, filling in all the blanks around him, in order to feel a little relaxed.
But he also gradually realized the joy of being immersed in the world of graffiti. “It was an out-of-body experience, and I was addicted to this free-flowing creative state.”
He never thinks about what to paint or how to paint in advance, everything is improvised. But the final works are always smooth lines, rigorous structure, and have a beauty of their own.
In 2015, his talents began to emerge.
This year, he turned a pop-up store into a large-scale graffiti art installation. After the video was posted online, the number of views exceeded 36 million, making him instantly famous.
Since then, his life has been like a hang-up, his fame has become more and more famous, and the price of his works has also risen.
However, there are always some dissenting voices in the circle, thinking that graffiti is difficult to be elegant, and it is not an art.
To fight back, in 2019, he exhibited a series of works that deconstructed world-famous paintings at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, turning “Mona Lisa”, “The Scream” and “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” into playful graffiti.
Before the opening of the exhibition, all the paintings were sold out early, which is a beautiful battle.
Because of the popularity of millennials, Mr. Doodle has also become the darling of big fashion brands.
Brands such as Fendi, Adidas, Puma and others scrambled to collaborate with him, printing his signature graffiti on bags and shoes, continuing to spread around the world.
03
The ultimate dream is
Cover the moon with doodles
However, talent often comes with a price.
In 2020, Mr. Doodle just set a record for the day at the Tokyo Central LIVE AUCTION auction with a piece of “Spring” that sold for more than 7 million yuan, and disappeared on social media for 5 months.
It was not until last year that he told his fans that he was admitted to the hospital because of the stress of work and a mental illness.
During that time, he was often tormented by auditory and hallucinations, sometimes feeling like he was talking to God, and sometimes thinking Trump was going to ask him to paint the walls.
He was in the ward for 6 weeks. Fortunately, there is a pen and paper, so he can continue to paint. His passion for graffiti sustained him through a difficult period of therapy.
After he spoke about this experience, many people sighed that they always thought his art was crazy, but they didn’t expect that he was really suffering from mental illness.
And the dense lines and patterns may be the antidote to his sense of security.
Today, Mr. Doodle still has many bold ideas, and recently said that his “ultimate dream is to cover the entire moon with graffiti.”
As he said: “These graffiti that others seem a little silly have no deep meaning behind them. But for me, the biggest purpose of creation is to hope that people will feel happy when they see my works.”
Text, editor / strawberry
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