Kid's writing on the walls
Kid Acne has been master of the spray can for nearly 20 years. Now the Sheffield artist has just finished what is the city's biggest public artwork - huge paintings of the phrases that constitute our everyday small talk. Star reporter Rachael Clegg discovers what it's all about.
IT takes more than two minutes to walk alongside Kid Acne's latest art installation.
Splattered in huge eight-foot capital letters, it reads EVERYONE'S A WINNER and YOU CAN'T GO WRONG.
These statements, which span 100 metres of boarding alongside Eyre Street, are among hundreds of quips that constitute our 'small talk'. And it is this that fascinates the Sheffield graphic artist-cum-musician.
In conversation, they take around one second to say, yet Kid Acne's colossal phrases take much longer to read, leaving the reader pondering.
After all, what do 'everyone's a winner', and 'you can't go wrong' really mean? Neither are even right.
As Kid Acne - who turns 32 this year - says: "These are colloquial terms - everyday phrases that have no meaning really but I thought they would look good massive.
"They're based on all the back-handed compliments I have had from eccentric passers-by while I have been painting on the street over the years.
"People would say things like, 'I've seen worse', or, 'You can't go wrong'. "One person said, 'It's better than nothing' as I was painting a mural. That's not much of a comparison!"
But such comments are a big part of Sheffield's identity. They are part of the city's attitude and contribute to its reputation as being one of the friendliest cities in the country.
"Painted on a massive scale, the slogans are given a sense of purpose - they are part of our regional dialect," say the artist,
"It's like talking about the weather - we say these things without even thinking and yet it takes a minute to go past the slogans in a taxi."
But while Kid Acne's phrases reflect a South Yorkshire attitude and openness, he's keen to point out he's not just producing artwork about Sheffield.
"I wouldn't just want to be doing Sheffield stuff for the sake of it," he says. And he doesn't.
Kid Acne's other slogan works include You'll Thank Me One Day and, painted near Park Hill flats, You Couldn't Make It Up.
"With the You Couldn't Make It Up work it was almost as if the painting was commenting on itself, but people can read into these works whatever they want," he says.
His slogans project has taken him across the world, translating phrases like 'You Couldn't Make it Up' into German, French and Portuguese, for murals in Germany, France and Brazil.
"It's not just straight translating - I have German friends who help me with the slogans. I've got a couple of shows lined up but I'm conscious of over-killing it."
Kid Acne has exhibited across Europe and Australia. His work has ended up on T-shirts, album covers, and posters.
He has made a career of doing what he always enjoyed - doodling, drawing and spray-painting.
"It's a leap of faith," he says. "I know loads of people who are really talented but they don't pursue it."
As a teenager, Kid Acne would make comic books and fanzines, developing a strong interest in graphics that eventually brought him to Sheffield to study fine art. Since graduating, he has been working as a self-employed artist.
"I've been pursuing this interest since I was a kid - it's all been very serendipitous really."
His work takes him all over - from London to Hull to Europe.
"I hardly spend any time here any more," he says. "I'm back and forth to London such a lot."
The EVERYONE'S A WINNER and YOU CAN'T GO WRONG slogans painted alongside Eyre Street were commissioned by Sheffield-based creative agency Humanstudio, as part of the regeneration work for The Moor.
"They wanted some hand-painted artwork as it's hard to fill an empty space like that and they didn't want to use digital artwork," he said. "They said I could do anything I wanted as long as I painted it on a maroon background."
The artist painted the murals during January's snow and ice, working in temperatures as low as minus three degrees.
"The temperature in which I was working was colder than anything I had ever done before. All the paint froze before it had dried so I had to re-do it. But it is now the biggest public art piece in Sheffield."
The installation also provided a welcomed contrast from the time-consuming, long timespan projects that make up Kid Acne's other work - recording albums and designing album covers.
"It was nice to do something on that scale that was so immediate. With an exhibition or an album it's never 'done' in the sense that this project was.
"It was really enjoyable and quite liberating working on this."
And, of course, it has made him quite the expert on European, Brazilian and colloquialisms.
"I am now fluent in small talk," he laughs.
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