Alloyius McIlwaine On Street Art Culture And Antics Abroad

Philly based street artist, Alloyius McIlwaine, had the creative gene from childhood. From his young years sketching comic book characters, to diving headfirst into some full-on years of 24/7 hustle to carve out his lane, Alloyius has established himself as an internationally regarded artist — both indoors and on the streets, painting his way across the US, and around the world to Paris, Madrid, Casablanca, Costa Rica, London, Toyko, and Windsor, Ontario.

Full of good vibes and an eagerness to share his craft, Alloyius was kind enough to join us on the Street Art Unearthed podcast, where he dished on his escapades across the world, including a brush with the cops in Toyko and being shown around Paris by one of France’s biggest street art superstars, C215, where his work would become immortalised in the official Street Art Guide to Paris.

Check out the podcast episode here, or read on for excerpts from the chat.

Bucking the Family Trend

My grandfather played Jazz saxophone with people like Sinatra and Chubby Checker and Sammy Davis Junior. My two uncles were in a group called the Bar-Kays that toured with Rick James and Parliament-Funkadelic. I didn’t know that Rick James wasn’t my blood uncle until I was the age of 12 because I always knew him as uncle Rick. I’m the only visual artist.

Over the years, I experimented with different mediums trying to find what my lane was. It’s been a process building and growing, getting better and better as the years go along.

When I was younger it didn’t seem like much of an option to be a professional artist because there was a bit of a stigma growing up for a certain point where you’re told that artists starve, artists don’t make money. My parents encouraged my art, but they always wanted me to have a backup because it just seemed at that time that art was basically like catching lightning in a bottle if you made it as an artist.

After Banksy and Shepard Fairey became commercially successful, especially with street art, it changed the perception of what was needed in the art world, and it gave more opportunity for people like me to make lanes for ourselves to be successful as artists.

Hitting Upon the Signature Style

Regarding my signature style with abstract shapes, it’s a more developed version of something that I did when I was in school doodling in my books. I feel like I took something that was a natural thing for me and developed it into a visual language.

One of the cool things about it — with the shapes that are one dimensional — I am trying to develop a visual language where each symbol means something completely different. I figure if I developed a language for the 1D shapes, I could leave little messages in the pieces that are hidden which not everybody might get.

Embracing the Hustle

Trying to build a platform out of nothing, you have to experiment a lot. I would do little scavenger hunts where I would hide art in different places. Then if a certain number of people followed my social media accounts, I would give out free prints. I had to do a lot of experimentation and marketing. Giving people that bit of personal connection makes the art stand out.

I’m working on new things almost every day.

I have this thing where I kind of just say I’m going to do things and then I kind of just figure out what I have to do to do it.

It took a couple years to catch on, but once it picked up, it was an avalanche of things come flooding in.

Triggering the Avalanche

My first big mural was in this hair shop in the middle of nowhere in New Jersey. Someone contacted me because my cousin runs Art Above Reality — a kind of art journalism company out of LA. He got in for the first interaction of Google Gallery. When Google Chromecast was put out, all of the Google Gallery images were used for the screen savers when the screens went idle, so anyone who had Chromecast saw one of my paintings pop up on the screen after the TV went Idle.

This group in Salt Lake City contacted me. They flew me out, had a limo waiting for me. They took me straight to the office, and they sat me down and said “we want to see what you can do” so they threw some ideas at me and I sketched something up for them and they basically just cut the cheque after they saw what I could do on the spot. So they filmed it and did a dope timelapse.

Once I posted that, everything went really over well after that. I did some showcasing at my cousins’ gallery, Gallery 38, out in LA and did some murals out in LA, then I was consistently getting the work here in Philadelphia, and it just snowballed.

If you put good energy out in the world and really hustle for what your dreams are, it might sound cliche, but you can build a lane for you if you really push.

Linking Up with C215 and Painting in Paris

I really wanted to paint in Paris. I posted on social media one day “I really want to paint in Paris, if anyone has any ideas on how to make this work, let me know!” and my friend Iris hit me up and told me she would set me up with her buddy C215. They call him the French Banksy. Not only because of his stencil work but he is friends with Banksy and has done shows with him.

Iris told me “He saw your work and he wanted to help you out and get you over there”. He took time out of his day, brought me to four different walls. Tooks out his phone and showed my work to different business owners, asking “can he paint here, can he paint here” and got me set up.

Graffiti Culture vs Street Art Culture

Before street art was even a thing, there was always graffiti first. Street art is something that grew out of that. But the interesting thing is that a lot of the time there is a really adversarial relationship between the people that do graffiti an the people that do street art. It’s something really weird that I’ve noticed and it’s really odd to me because I would say at least 75% of the people that do street art now, did graffiti first.

When I was in Miami, there was a guy from Switzerland doing a mural, and he was really getting into it, and I came back the next day to check on him, and he was shaking his head almost in tears because someone went and did chrome tags over his mural that he has been slaving for.

Out of respect for someone as an artist, the way I was bought up in graffiti, you’re never supposed to go over something that took hours for something that took minutes. There is no part of that in any scenario that is justifiable.

What gets some people upset in the graffiti world is that street artists, a lot of the time, have an easier time getting on walls because, objectively, street art is seen as more beautiful.

I did graffiti, and I do street art now because I feel like not everybody has the accessibility to go to a gallery and see art. The thing I love about graffiti and street art is that you can just be walking down the street and get hit in the face with some colour. Imagine a kid growing up in a poor neighbourhood, he doesn’t get the chance to go and see an art gallery, but he has the opportunity to walk around his neighbourhood and get hit in the face with some colour. I have always done graffiti and street art so that I can share my creativity with other people. I want to provide something beautiful for people to experience.

The worlds first modern-day graffiti writer was Cornbread. He is actually from Philadelphia, so I know him, and I actually did a collaboration with him. One of the interesting things about talking to graffiti artists is they were saying graffiti has to be given the chance to evolve.

I love graffiti. There are people I marvel and watch what they do — guys like Rosco and Helio Bray — they are doing these amazing pieces. The can control is amazing! Guys like Pose. Even if that’s something I do, I sit back amazed at these other artists. There are so many things that are so dope about the culture of graffiti I just wish there was less of a divisiveness between graffiti and street art.

Pulled Up By the Cops in Tokyo

A lot of people don’t know that you have street artists that are taking the same risks as graffiti artists. I got the tank in Tokyo for doing some stuff I wasn’t supposed to. I was supposed to have this wall set up for me there but it fell through, and I thought “there is no way I’m coming to Tokyo and not doing what I originally planned to do”.

The detectives were really nice. I was halfway through, and then 18 cop cars came. I told them what I was doing, trying to give my gift to Tokyo before I left. After talking for a while I had to pay a $600 fine, but some even gave me their card and told me to come back and visit, just get permission next time.

It was the Icarus thing: flying too close to the sun. Sometimes I get this thing where I’m going to go for it. You only live once, and you’re never going to do anything great if you don’t take risks.

Philly, Mural Capital of the World

The funny thing about doing street art in Philadelphia is that there have been times where I have been painting in broad ass daylight in the street, doing stuff that I was not supposed to be doing. But because I was doing something that looked professional and when the cops went by I looked and waved and went back to what I was doing — because we have such a mural culture here they were like “oh, he’s probably supposed to be there”. That probably led into the Toyko thing.

Philly is an art mecca. There are so many murals here because we have the mural arts program, which started as the anti-graffiti project in the 70s and then they thought that there was a negative connotation behind the anti-graffiti network because there is some value behind graffiti. It’s not that they were against graffiti, just against people painting on things that they’re not supposed to.

Now a certain amount of the cities budget goes towards art programs. Through Mural Arts there are around 4000 murals in Philadelphia that are done by Mural Arts — that’s just the official ones — not even counting the graffiti and street art, there are probably at least another 700. I have 120 myself. The culture here is so cool!

Written using excerpts from our latest podcast with Alloyius McIlwaine.

Check out Alloyius McIlwaine via his website, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.