It’s pretty hard to do unique graffiti in 2019. With the internet and the social media black hole, a lot of style is rinse and repeat. When I first met this Welshman on a trip in 2015, I was struck by his distinctive approach to letters and the whole process in general. Obscure letter connections, shines and over-fills that resemble computer-circuitry, and his esoteric use of colour makes the work of CERES hard to forget.
We were keen to learn more about Taffy, so we got in touch via the interwebs for a quick one two.
What do you write, and where are you from?
Ceres from Cardiff, Wales/Cymru aka Old South Wales.
What is your earliest memory of graffiti?
The scene in Cardiff when I started was really small, so the first graffiti that really made an impression on me was actually in London.
As a child, I’d go there a couple times a year on holiday, as I had family there, and I remember looking out of the windows on the circle line watching the silver names flash by.Fume, Fume, Teach, Fume …. on and on.
I knew even then that I’d be moving to London at some point to join in.
When did you start painting seriously?
Although I started painting in 1999, I think it was a year or so later that I painted my first train in Canton Depot, Cardiff. I then spent the whole next day perched on my bedroom window sill waiting to see it run, if you stood on a chair you could see the trains run up to the South Wales Valleys.
Ever since seeing Subway Art in my school library, I’d wanted to re-create it on my local line, unfortunately it didn’t run, but I was still hooked.
What’s the story behind ‘Taffy’ I know it’s a poem or something?
Yeah sort of, it comes from an old English nursery rhyme from the 18th century, and it’s been seen as a derogatory term for a Welsh man ever since.
In the early days of going to London just to paint, it was often how I was greeted by the locals, so when looking for a name to use for some of my artwork, that wasn’t my tag or actual name, it seemed apt.
The other names I was greeted with at the time was ‘Welsh cunt’ or ‘Sheep-shagger’, so I probably made the right choice.
London at that time had a reputation for being a hostile environment for writers, especially out of towners, but I definitely look at that time fondly and am actually mates or friendly with a lot of my early adversaries.
How have you seen the scene in wales/uk change over the years?
It’s changed a lot.
In Cardiff itself there’s a lot more graffiti now than when I started, a lot of this is down to how much more acceptable it is now to the average person. Hall of fames used to be hidden down alleys or abandoned areas, now they’re bang in the middle of town.
London is pretty much the same as it ever was, it always goes through peaks and troughs. There will be a crackdown and the scene will mostly die, then it comes back with a vengeance. I’ve never seen the buff so lax though, that’s a big difference, and I find it pretty amusing after the last crackdown, that a lot of London is now so battered.
The main difference these days though, is the internet. It would be looked down upon to even send photos to magazines in the UK, let alone put them on the internet. The way it’s changed in less than 10 years is madness, now it’s the norm to put stuff straight on your instagram.
You got in a bit of trouble at one point, I copped your prison drawing zine which is dope. Anything you’d share about that whole experience?
After 3 years on bail and going to and from court, I was sentenced to 22 months in prison for graffiti on trains.
Main thing I’d say is what a waste of time it all was, which is probably why, towards the end of my sentence I started drawing a lot as wanted to get something out of it.
I hate not being active or productive and jail is the opposite of both of those things. Then again it was all pretty amusing looking back.
You paint a lot of interesting places in Wales. What draws you to these spots?
It’s funny as for the first 10 years I painted I didn’t really look at anything other than passenger trains, it’s only in the last few years I’ve realised how many other good things there are to paint.
The spots you’re talking about just came from moving back to Wales and travelling around and noticing some spots, once I’d done a few, I did more research and kept finding more, especially the abandoned tunnels and mines.
If you go back a couple of generations on both sides of my family you find coal miners or slate quarrymen, so a lot of the interest has come from that.
Show me a flick of one of your favourite pieces of art/photo/graffiti from somebody else.
Le corbusier in his studio.
‘Pitheads’ by Berns & Hilla Becher.
What’s bumping in your tape deck at the moment?
I’m listening to a lot of my friends output at the moment, people like Darkhouse Family, Reginald Omas Mamode IV, Mo Kolours and the rest of 22a records.
You’ve done a fair bit of travel over the years. What has been your favourite city/country to paint in?
That’s a very hard question.
For trains, I don’t think New York can be beaten, the atmosphere in those tunnels are un-paralleled.
I also really enjoyed doing the Trans-Siberian, and painting in Mongolia was definitely a highlight.
It’s pretty hard to be unique these days. I really like your line-drawings and pieces, how did that progression work?
I was going through a stage of doing black highlights in my panels instead of white, then I started experimenting with them, doing shapes and patterns rather than just the usual highlight, this was back in 2005.
It then progressed to me doing some wholecars on ladders, where I just chromed out the carriage and then did the highlights/patterns without bothering to do the letters first, I did quite a lot of those as they were fun to do.
My favourite part of painting is doing the lines at the end, so it’s good to just by-pass the tedious bit if possible and go straight to the lines!
What’s next for Taffy?
I’m aiming to do a few Welsh road-trips over the summer, as well as continuing to paint and travel more widely. I’ve got some new releases planned for Pavement Studio in the next few months and currently have quite a few other artistic projects on the go.
More from CERES at the following spots:
Instagram – @thetaffy
The Pavement Studio – @thepavementstudio