Art exists everywhere. The world is a canvas, and everybody has art in them. We could go back to the pyramid walls and hieroglyphics. Your canvas is whatever you put your art on. That’s why we call it an expression.
I’m always aware of the street art in every city I go to. Whether it’s sanctioned by the city or done by someone who lives there or visited there, I take it all in. Back in the Seventies and Eighties, when you had graffiti artists adding color to the subways, they had their expression, too.
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I never did graffiti myself, but I grew up with people who were great at it. My interest came from the Marvel and DC comic-book worlds. Everybody in New York City loved comics since they were New York-based. Whether it was The Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, Iron Man, or Thor, a lot of the graphics by Jack Kirby and other great illustrators influenced me and a lot of graffiti artists, too, who were collectors.
There’s beauty in the graffiti artist Futura 2000. He went from subway cars to album-cover design. Then Haze tightened up the Public Enemy logo. I gave it to him raw, and he made it the logo the record companies used.
I started out doing visual art as a form of protest. I grew up wanting to be an illustrator — that’s probably more my calling. I went to Adelphi University to sharpen my graphic skills. As a freshman, I was a cartoonist. My illustrations ran in the school newspaper — social commentary on how I saw the world, the country, the president. That was when I was 17, 18 years old.
Ten years ago, I picked up the pen again at 55. My dad passed, and I went back into my art full blast. I try to put together something graphically that will hold you for a minute. A lot of people now are what I call “screenagers”; everybody seems to be on the move. But a still graphic can slow you down and get you to think about something differently. That’s the purpose behind my artistic expression.
CHUCK D is an artist and a co-founder of the rap group Public Enemy, which received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020.
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