An Interview with Captain Kris, a Street Artist.

Tell us about yourself and how you became an artist / illustrator?
I've always drawn and painted for as long as I can remember. I started using spraypaint when I was around 16 just messing around and just carried on doing it. I went to art school and switched things up a bit and I guess it was just a natural progression to what I do today. Comics and cartoons heavily influence my work and the colour schemes. I'm obsessed with clean graphic line work as well.

You do a lot of work in urban spaces. What is the exciting thing about these type of projects?
There's loads of benefits to painting outside. It's a social thing, you meet people, get to paint massive walls and it has an immediate response. There's no real barriers with it , you just put it out there and leave it. There's also nothing better than going on a mission to paint a chilled abandoned spot with your mates in the middle of summer and finding some mad places.

What is your favourite piece of work you have done and where can we see it?
I'm never happy with anything but I was pretty happy with the wall that I painted with The Real Dill a while ago in Camden hooked up by 'The Real Art of Street Art'. The whole area is in redevelopment now though so you can't get in there to see the piece anymore unfortunately!

Which artists and designers inspire you?

I get inspired by artists I work with a lot. I'm still a big comic fan and love anything by Tomer and Asaf Hanuka or James Jean. In terms of street stuff, I massively rate Sofles for colour and technique. ClogTwo and Katun absolutely kill it on the character stuff!

Tell us about the creative process that brought Commander Awesome ad Venus to life.
My work is associated with superheroes and comics so it made sense to base these characters around that theme. I work in the design industry as well so I always try and put a load of concepts together but usually the simplest ideas work the best. Commander Awesome has a very similar look to my trademark Captain character.

Commander Awesome and Venus designed by Captain Kris for ChattyFeet.

Do you have any memorable reactions you got from people about your work?
I really appreciate that people actually like what I do. I've always just painted the kind of thing that I like because that's what I wanted to do. So it's cool that other people are into it as well.

Who are the Lost Souls Crew?
The Lost Souls are myself, SPzero76, Squirl and SiMitchell. We get together a lot and work on large wall collaborations.

Your characters can be seen on shoes, socks , food packaging and notebooks. Where do you think you would like to bring them next?
Anywhere I can! As long as I like the project it makes sense to do it, I'm going to paint anything and everything I can.

Tell about other things you are passionate about apart from art…
I love cooking and I make badass cakes! I'm big on travelling too and want to see as many places as I can, Japan is top of my list right now!

What are you working on right now?
I have some cool projects on the go that I can't say anything about but I'm working on new paintings in my studio with the aim of doing a Lost Souls show in the near future!