The Miami Art Blog by Heike Dempster

As a female artist to me it's important to celebrate women's strength and beauty. I'm honored to have been invited to represent Miami ladies and participate in the “Girls run this Motha!#%” exhibit!

My work is about femininity and getting to know myself as a woman. I've developed a cat woman character, an alter ego, where I give my ladies graceful strong feminine qualities that are personal to me. I like to think of them as super human.

I enjoy painting alluring feminine women with flowing hair and super human feline qualities.

Which woman/ women do you admire and why?

I admire so many women. Especially my mother and those who raised me, they taught me that I can do anything I set my mind to. Forever instilling the words "I Can!" in my life. Thank you!

My work has been about developing my artistic persona.

A journey into a floating world, a place where imagination and reality merge, and are free to run wild.

I like working with a variety of mediums, and enjoy discovering new techniques. Most recently I'm exploring aerosol, it's fun quick and allows me more time for details.

Switzerland. Geneva. The French part.

It has been three years that I do back and forth between Geneva and Miami.

Wynwood, because it is full of paint and people are really creative in this neighborhood.

Murals and some new art works on canvas, paper, and wood.

Yes but I have not signed any contracts yet. My exhibition is still running at Brisky Gallery and I am planning a next one for before the summer.

That’s a very difficult question because I am really into always changing my techniques, learning new techniques. I am always evolving with the medium. I really like spray cans for sure because that is really the roots of my painting, but I love all kinds of medium. I like pencil, watercolors, it can be a ball pen, anything that can get in your hands and I am creative with that.

No. I drew since I was a little kid. I started at five years old and I never stopped to draw. At 15, I discovered spray paint. That is where my love for paint comes from. Before that, I did not like regular paint with a brush but after I did a lot of graffiti the love for the brush and different paint mediums came.

Human beings. People. I guess you can say a lot of women. That’s true but I also paint a lot of guys. I have painted less guys lately on walls but my subject is the human being. No matter the sex, actually.

I do both. I really like to create characters but I think I really need to work on it so I do that sometimes so basically I work with models and with people I meet. I talk to them and we share ideas and we work together. Some of my new watercolors are just from my imagination though. I really try to do both.

Yes I am always open to collaborations. I love to collaborate with different artists. It brings a lot to your own work and you share and it’s really amazing, but sometimes the schedule is difficult for that.

Everywhere.

Brazil. Sao Paulo and everywhere else in Brazil. Tokyo. That’s also I place I really want to go. It seems really inspiring. Barcelona is maybe also a place I want to paint. Basically, I love to discover places. When I came to Miami, I wasn’t expecting that at all. I was surprised and I fell in love with Miami and I keep going back and forth. I want to paint everywhere and discover different kinds of landscapes.

Actually, I don’t remember that. I tried the other day to remember what was my image of Miami. My crew is based in LA, so before Miami I often went to LA so I did not really have an image of Miami but I guess it was South Beach and party and probably a lot of people. That’s really why I am glad I came to Wynwood where the culture is accessible to everyone. You just walk in the street and here it is.

“Leza” means “comfortable with” in French. It is actually a street language name. In French we reverse words, so originally “leza” is alez” and when you reverse it becomes “leza.” It means, comfortable with a person, a situation.

When I was 14, I started to do tags and throw ups in the streets with my friends and back in the day you expressed yourself but also you took care of the territory so you represented a certain neighborhood and go against other neighborhoods to show you are better than them etcetera. Back in the days, when we were kids, our names were like “Killer 75,” “Assassin.” Bad names. When I stopped that, I was like, I love so much to draw and I love so much to paint, I cannot go further and further with a name like this. I tried to find a name that goes with me, my feelings and the way I think. So I came up with this name.

I do both. My main thing is freedom. That’s why I paint in the street. I am really glad and I am thankful when people ask me to paint and commission me and I get paid for it. I never dreamt of it and now it is coming and I am really glad. I always also keep doing stuff when I want where I want. I don’t ask. I always go with respect. I never think I destroy something. Sometimes I still paint during the night. I hit some spot I know. If I ask they say no but I think that in the morning when they see the piece they do not feel offended. Maybe they say “oh, we cannot keep it” and they cover it white again but I never go with a wrong idea. I keep my freedom.

First when I came to Miami I was invited by Art Whino Gallery from Washington. I came with my crew so we were all together in an apartment. We stayed for one week to paint a mural during Art Basel. It was really an amazing time. I discovered Wynwood. I discovered Miami a little bit more and I felt really, really welcome. The whole point of this is really that local and international artists, wherever you come from, share. I really feel that Miami allowed that. I met local artists as well as international artists. I met both and that was really a fortune for me.

For me, the story is like when you are a kid, you have dreams and stuff and usually, when you grow up a little bit, you forget those dreams. For me, it is about keeping the things you want and the way you want to live your life in your mind and not just be a slave of anything. Money, or your job, or your husband, or your mother. Be free and be respectful with anyone and go on your own way. I represented this with this kid but actually it could be a grown up. We all have this part in ourselves but we just need to figure out how to let it go.

The crew is called “Army of Snipers.” The founder is Angry Woebots aka Aaron “Woes” Martin. He founded this collective maybe four years ago. He traveled around the world and met people he thought were on the same page in the way they create and the way they see life. He invited them to represent the crew. We are 15 now from all over the world but mainly in the US.

So you just meet somewhere in the world and do projects together?

Exactly. We are all independent but we work together.

In Geneva the art scene is pretty good. It is a small city but there are plenty of graffiti artists and plenty of muralists. Some people are really creative for a small city like this. They always keep going, keep going and keep painting. If you go to Geneva you will always see graffiti, tags, murals, frescos. It is not legal to do that but it is way more allowed. If you go and paint on walls that are already crappy and dirty and you paint with a positive attitude then nobody will say anything. It is kind of accepted there.

No but I have a gallery that represents me. Frank Pages Gallery in Geneva. Here in Miami, I work since last February with Brisky Gallery.

- Graffiti/Street Art: Sunday March 2 and Monday March 3
- Drawing/Sketch Sunday March 9 and Monday March 10 (model will be present)
- Painting/Watercolor/Acrylic Sunday March 16 and Monday March 17

Street art received a lot of attention at the third edition of the fair. In collaboration with Cash, Cans & Candy, an international festival of street art from Vienna, Austria, curator Katrin-Sophie Dworczak lined up a global who’s who of street artists like Miami locals Douglas Hoekzema and Brandon Opalka, Stinkfish of Colombia / Mexico, The Stencil Network and Alexis Diaz of Puerto Rico and Stephen Tompkins of Cleveland to create original works onsite. Additionally, Jessica Goldman of Goldman Properties commissioned the murals for the VIP Lounge, including works by top street artists like Miss Van and Fafi.

Chaz: We helped bringing some of the artists because we know a lot of people. The guy who organized it petitioned the Dutch government. We were instrumental in helping but we can’t take any credit really. We brought in as many artists as we can to come and join the project.

Chaz: No. it is literally just a case of getting as many good artists as we could together. Create a really nice looking place. It is just about fun and the pursuit of excellence.

Chaz: I have painted in Miami during Basel every year for the past five years and Bob has also painted down here in Miami but this is his first time for Basel so this is great. When we work together that is when we really do our best stuff. Flexing muscles. I am really happy Bob’s out here.

Bob: This is based on a painting we did in our studio about a month ago. Chaz drew his characters on this painting and handed it to me. I thought, how can I make this work? I just invented some kind of perspective and then I kind of invented this narrative where I wanted to tell a story about these god-like creatures that were worshipped by this race of people that are kind of like worker bees. An army of happy guys with these big space helmets on. They seem to be at a street party or carnival on the way to board this mother ship. We try to experiment when it comes to telling a story with the painting and the viewer can invent any story so you can interpret it yourself. It is this very happy party.

Bob: We were based in London. I grew up just outside London. We liked the idea of the London police because the actual real police are called the Metropolitan Police and that name hadn’t been taken. We like the idea that we are policing the streets with good art work. That was the idea. And everyone knows the word “London” and the word “police” in any language so that’s quite strong. I can’t take credit for the name. Chaz came up with it.

Chaz: 15 years. The last five, we have probably been doing more stuff on canvas and projects that are actually going out. There comes a certain time when it gets boring and you are repeating yourself. You want to use your time and your artistic energy for other things. If you have the chance to make money off what you do, that is always the best. We love making paintings. The minute you start ding something on a different scale with so much detail you do not want it painted over the next week. It’s not fun. You want it to stay up to entertain and show people what you have done. That’s the whole point. You want to make pieces that will have longevity and be around for hundreds of years almost if it is on canvas.

Chaz: We definitely have a system and we work well together. We know what each other requires. We know what each other desires in the piece. It’s about coming up with a theme and trying to make symmetrical work. Balance it nicely. Bob has been leaning a bit more on these little characters and he is doing architecture rather than drawing portraiture and stuff like that, which he was doing before. I love the portraiture stuff that he did but when it comes to drawing from the imagination then it is something a bit more special because it’s original. There is no substitute for originality in my opinion, in artwork.

Chaz: We have got all sorts of things going on at the moment. A project will hopefully be going on in Belgium where we will paint a commission. We have stuff in Sweden, back in America. We can’t really talk about it. We have to keep it on the low down until it is all definitely happening. You never know. We had this job lined up for Italy last summer and it was gonna happen and they would pay us and we would go over to Italy for two weeks and then all of a sudden it just fell through. It was months of planning and it just didn’t happen suddenly but then, two days before, these people from Luxembourg called us and wanted us to do this project and we ended up doing that and that was brilliant. You never know what’s going to happen. You just do what you can, really. Just stay flexible and try to keep enjoying it.

Chaz: Big cities are always inspiring. I would also like to do something huge in my hometown. Just because it is where I grew up. In Essex. I would like to do my local shops. I would love it. We also love traveling, we love putting things in different countries. I do not particularly have a preference.

Chaz: The graffiti artists out here don’t give too much beef to the graffiti artists from around the world who suddenly show up at their doorstep and start painting everywhere. They seem to embrace that and get involved, too. It’s nice, you can see every type of art from graffiti letter styles to paste ups and kids doing stuff. We advocate a policy of: enjoy yourself. It is not competition for us. We want to make a great piece for people to see. We are happy to be hear in a community of artists, meet people and have fun. I have a lot of respect for the local artists. It is their city. I think the trouble is that some of the biggest cities like New York or London there seems to be some beef between street art and graffiti. I don’t understand it. I mean, it is all under one heading of art to me. As long as people respect each other, I don’t see the problem. That’s just my personal view. We don’t expect everyone to share it. Everyone gets a chance to paint here.

Chaz: Not too bad. I think Shepard Fairey’s stuff got done a few years back but he is a particular case. He doesn’t deserve it but a lot of the graffiti artists target that as a sort of big name making statement. Shepard is actually one of the nicest guys I have met in the whole scene over the years. He has always got time for people and just likes to work and do his thing. He actually has a lot of great respect for a lot of the great graffiti artists. He has got nothing against them. It is interesting how it is all developing and evolving. When my mom and dad had me, they never brought me up to be a lawyer or an accountant. They just brought me up to be myself. In graffiti you have all these different forms of street art that came out and it is funny that people get upset about it. Why is this person doing wheat paste? It is just your child coming from graffiti doing a different thing. It is a seed and you cannot control the seed. Graffiti is how it all started and I have nothing but respect for the art of graffiti but I think everyone should be open minded.

I am really interested in typography. I often use words. I am really interested in words. How they look but also the meaning behind them. Recently I have been reading a lot of books and I read this book called “Eden,” which references a lot C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. The guy who wrote “The Hobbit.” They talk a lot about mythology. They were very interested in mythology. That’s why they were writing these books. They had this idea that myths are echoes of reality. They were talking about this concept of there being echoes of paradise in the world now, so, when you see a beautiful sunset, it is an echo of paradise. When you listen to the story of Cinderella and all ends with happily ever after it is a bit unrealistic in this world but it is actually an echo of a better world. I just find that really exciting. I do believe there are echoes of paradise all around us. It is kind of an encouragement. It is saying “I Remember Paradise.” there is a paradise. It might be a bit messed up in this world but there is something better. That’s what it is trying to say. It is just me really saying what is in my heart. The beautiful colors are reflecting paradise. I think every beautiful thing here is a reflection of that better place.

No.

It’s amazing. The guys here, like all of the people who we have been working with, the team we have been working with, all the other artists, are so amazing and it is so inspiring what they are doing out here. Just such a collaborative vibe. Really about community and very open. Lots of sharing. They have been so welcoming. Really, really nice and so healthy in their creativity. I feel like you really need those things. Creativity rather than closed-ness. That kind of edge you sometimes find, I found it to be the exact opposite here. It has really been inspiring. I am just so amazed to be part of it, really.

It’s funny cause I studied graphic design and illustration in London. I graduated in 2009. It was a weird course because it really pushed the idea of what illustration is, outside of children’s books and traditional stuff. I ended up coming out of that doing lots of different stuff, just kind of applying my aesthetic. I did a lot of commercial work but also my own work. I was really into painting large scale rather than doing small things. I ended up making a lot of large scale work. I like this sense of the epic. Monumental things that really shout louder than something that’s closed in a book. I have never done a wall this big. This is like a giant leap from what I have done before in terms of scale. I am really happy and I am loving it.

I have a friend who has got a gallery in LA. She comes to London, to art fairs like Frieze and this contemporary African art fair that is very interesting. She came two months ago for Frieze and when she comes we always chat about my work and what I am doing. We just kind of share interests and inspiration. I showed her around my studio and she is friendly with Jeffrey Deitch, who curated this project here in Wynwood. She told him about me and, basically, he liked my work and I got to do it.

I do, yes. I don’t exhibit as much as I would want to because you have to pay the bills so I have done a lot of commercial stuff but I do exhibit. When did I last exhibit? In Shoreditch this summer at Hoxton Gallery. Right now I am just kind of going from thing to thing. I am trying to get some funding from the Arts Council for a project all about African and Caribbean hairstyles. My husband is a barber. We have decided on this collaboration, which we call “Bros with ‘Fros,” which is a t-shirt collection at the moment. For the moment it is just a commercial thing but I really want to explore it deeper and really get underneath the whole history and culture of the hairstyling. I just find it really interesting. I have done research into European ethnographic research. Back in the day they would do all this research and measure people’s heads and they would take samples of people bodies to label people. I was really interested in the idea of reversing that. Often they took hair samples because hair was an easy thing to package up and send off. Hair, often, in many cultures, has a kind of mystic quality and a magical quality so it is a really weird thing. They were actually stealing bits of people and then taking it home and then saying “this means this and this and this” and labeling it. I was quite interested in the idea of reversing that and re-labeling African Caribbean hair. I am just celebrating it for all the beauty and the craft and the skill involved in the hairstyling. Hopefully in the beginning of the new year that will all have produced a body of work.

One of the guys from The London Police asked me and a bunch of other artists from all over the world to come to Miami and paint walls. It was curated together with a gallery from Amsterdam. It is me, Lister, The London Police and many other artists.

I am from New York. I am living in Brooklyn right now.

My art is always pretty figurative but it is always influenced by animal spirits and combines animals and people. It is very colorful and I always like to consider my women that I paint to be warriors around the street. They are warriors and protectors and animal spirits and kind of fierce ladies. I put them up around the streets in New York and wherever I travel.

I do a little bit of gallery work but I started out doing only street art.

I started painting the wall white just to buff it and then, in my buff, I kind of started playing around with shapes and it started to evolve. I was just playing with the shape of the wall and this just happened to evolve out of it. It is a woman and an animal that keeps transforming. First, it was a wolf and then it was a rat and now it looks like a kangaroo. It is evolving as I go. Very animalistic. It is a hybrid animal. It is a work in progress so we will see what happens.

There is a personal reason that I do not disclose but also, I lived in France for a year, and “elle” means “she” and when I started doing street art and graffiti there was a very limited woman’s presence and I wanted it to be known that I was a female presence and also that I was representing all of the women. I am actually starting this girl crew, “Garmy,” which is Girl Army, and I am trying to include all of the powerful street artists and graffiti artists. Really awesome women that are kicking ass in their field.

All over the world but not just street artists. Women who are really killing it in their fields anywhere. Like a support network. I am taking the idea of a crew from graffiti. We need to make our presence felt. When I put up a big “Elle” I hope that everyone can just feel that that represents them.

Definitely.

There are more of us but very few of us. It is pretty limited but I think we are coming up. We are about to take over from the men.

Street art comes from the graffiti scene and there are a lot less women in graffiti. They don’t really wanna go to jail. There are more muralists and street artists than graffiti artists. There are a lot of risks that you take doing graffiti.

I started with street art and then I actually got into graffiti. I saw street art when I first moved to New York about six years ago and fell in love. I was like, man, this is such a gift, and I really wanna do that. It started with street art and then I started to appreciate graffiti as well. I started to try using spray cans and realized that it is so technical. It is just so beautiful and amazing, the things that you can make with it, so I got really involved with that as well and now I do a little bit of both.

It is a mystery.