Kano started sneaking out of his bedroom window at night to draw on bus stops more than twenty years ago. Moved by the grand subway cars and New York graffiti scene of the late 70s and early 80s, he continued to decorate the walls around local train lines and other surfaces that lent
themselves to his art form.
In the late 80s Kano moved from Adelaide to Melbourne to pursue his passion for painting and graphic design even further.
Kano is still exploring the art of letter transformation, which he discovered through in his formative years of graffiti writing, but now takes the process a step further; deconstructing letters and manipulating them beyond recognition, until the only forms left are purely decorative patterns.
Your art has been exploring the limits of typography for many years. Do you feel that there has been a certain complacency towards typographic design of late? It seems that all you see is auto-pilot minimalism and faux-naïve bubble fonts. Where do you look for more thoughtful and progressive trends in type?
My love for typography and letter-forms comes from two different disciplines. One is my background in graffiti writing and the other my graphic design career.
So my perspective and feeling toward typography sometimes comes from a hybrid of these two art forms. When approaching my personal artwork I think this cross pollination becomes most evident, as the two merge and I end up with something that really references and focuses on the history, decorative and ornamental nature of both.
In my art I am exploring the art of letter transformation, which I discovered in my days graffiti writing where letters were taken to the edge of their existence, manipulated and camouflaged through deconstruction. I now try and take this even further by throwing away more and keeping only certain elements of letters, until the only forms left are purely decorative and patterns start to emerge.
Within the typographic based art and design that I personally want to look at, I’m really noticing an appreciation and return by good designers and typographers to bespoke methods, with less hours spent on the computer and more focus on handmade type, drawing, printing and sign writing making a welcome resurgence.
There are those of us that have always appreciated this aesthetic, having respected and practiced it and always made it part of what we do. Unfortunately it’s something that is instilled rather than learned these days.
I rarely look to ‘the now’ for inspiration in type, but time and time again keep on going back to my favorite sources – a few examples would be designers like Eric Nitsche, the grand era of late seventies and early eighties subway art, hand crafted wood type, the incredible medium of album cover art, weathered storefronts and old hand painted signage.
What influence do 3-D architectural forms have on your work? I heard that you have a fascination with stairwells… What is it about them that intrigues you?
The fascination with stairwells has been with me as long as I can remember. I look at buildings and instantly imagine an x-ray image, with the stairwells linking everything and appearing like ant farm-like channels.
On closer inspection I find a dichotomy in their construction and aesthetics, where the incredibly beautiful can be the incredibly sad, and at times, threatening. There’s a decision that must be made either by you or for you when you enter a stairwell, to rise or descend, with the latter for me representing the unknown.
Tell us about the interplay between your art and your music. How does one inform the other?
I remember a similar question being asked of me very early on for an assignment when I was in high school. It was the most exciting question I had ever had been asked yet seemingly the hardest for me to explain properly.
I remember at the age of sixteen trying to explain in a round about way that from the time I woke to the time I slept there was music and a sketchbook with me at all times and they were both in bed with each other.
I’ve now found myself in this perfect position where what I do most of the time is create art and design for not just any music but music that I like.
Designing for music, like all design is about telling a story, about conveying a message and a feeling and I feel right at home illustrating what I hear.
I have been collecting music and DJing for many years and the ultimate for me is when music and art hold hands. I love to put a record on and open up a fine sleeve designed by someone like Robert Flynn & Joe LeBow for Impulse, Reid Miles for Blue Note, William Claxton for Pacific Jazz, and my personal favorite, Limelight’s Daniel Czubak who created cover art with intricate folds, pop ups, die cut booklets and transparencies.
His work changed the face of album cover art, although he is relatively unknown and in a lot of cases was never credited on the covers he designed.
Although digital media and distribution has its merits and is in some ways rewarding the artists much more than ever which is great, the tactile and hand-held aesthetic of the album cover art is unfortunately being lost.
[...] a favourite for both Anna & I was this one. U by Kano (interview here). I needed to show you the detail, hence the double image. It’s beautiful from afar and [...]