Mesk from Oporto speaks to ISSA

Mesk is a Portuguese Ιllustrator and graffiti artist from Oporto. His Interview is our first for Year 2019 and he takes us through his work back in his hometown and speaks about his goals, dreams and life!

-What do you choose to drink? Coffee, Tea, Beer, Soda or something else?
Usually I drink beer or water but I enjoy a good red wine with friends… and what ever follows!

-Introduce yourself
Hi there! My name it’s Gustavo, born at Porto and raised along nearby cities from the north of Portugal. I´ve been sketching since I was a child and began to writte a bit late because I was more into cartoon characters and comics, so only in 2004 I started to deal with walls and became “Mesk”.

– where does your tag name come from?
It comes from the word mescaline that it’s a psycotropical substance extracted from Peyote or San Pedro cactus. It gives you strong visuals when ingested such as bright colors, fluid shapes and my drawing style has a lot of these so I just shortened the word and added the “k”… because it had a lot more street cred!

-How do you define yourself? Artist? Street artist? Anything else?
I like to think of myself as an urban illustrator.

– How did it all start for you, and what is it nowadays?
It all started due to this challenge some friends made me, it was to put some of my drawings on a wall and since I experienced that larger scale of drawing it’s been my intention to go bigger and better while doing it.

-What is the first thing you do when you get up in the morning?
I wake and bake, check my phone for eventual calamities and start planning my day while having a shower.

-Street art is mostly a visually stimulating form of art. To add one more sense to it, what music would you pick to accompany your art work?
I guess I’ll choose “these walls don’t lie” from Promoe because it just started playing and it fits like a glove as soundtrack to my artwork.

-In all forms of art, inspiration is crucial. What is it that inspires you?
Friendship and fun stuff, to be able to share with close friends all that life as to offer. Happiness is one of the main inspirations I can have.

-What is the hardest part while working on a piece of art?
Knowing when it’s finished so that you don’t exaggerate and over do it.

-Do you have an artist(s) you admire and what for?

I have a lot or artists that I admire, all for different reasons such as style, ideas, the legality of the work or it’s dimensions.

-Which cities are the most inspiring for you?
I used to love Barcelona like I love Berlin right now. Still need to travel a bit more to get to know other cities, but right now it’s like that.

-What other passions do you have apart from art?
I really enjoy gaming, from computer to consoles, I waste a lot of free time doing it.

-Do you have a wild project that you dream of achieving some day?
I would like to take graffiti and street art to poor countries and try to ease some bad toughs just by offering a colourful and cheering character to those communities.

-Tell us about your art, does it include symbolisms, messages or repeated patterns?
It carries a lot of joy, no political or heavy messages, it’s suppose to make you smile, even if you don’t express it.

– How long time does a piece of art work of yours usually survive for?
Some of my first pieces are still up, the city hall tends to clean everything but these some how survived and I guess they are now getting to know my work and just clean the wall around it, for my surprise and delight.

-What do people first think of, or feel, when they see one of your works on the street?
I guess they usually try to figure out what kind of animal or person it that I’m trying to represent, but after people focus on that is happening, wich action is there, then the colours I picked and how the piece fits the spot. But you should be asking them, I don’t really like to put words in other people’s mouth.

-Do you have a secret you would like to share with us? 🙂
I don’t usually keep secrets so I kind of ruined this one.

–What are your creative plans for the future?
Keep putting my artwork up on the streets and get bigger and better gigs.

-Is there a specific thought or message you would like to pass to our audience out there?
Don’t take life too seriously, learn it’s rules and just have fun while breaking them!