ONLINE GALLERY
(Please note all images are shown in square format. Therefore some areas of the artwork have been cropped.)

I was born and live in Aberdeen, Scotland. Graduating in 1999 from Gray’s School Of Art with a BA (Hons) in Painting I then went on to receive a Postgraduate Diploma/Masters in Art & Design in 2000.

I have never stopped painting from then on and have been lucky enough to have exhibited my paintings the UK and further afield - Amsterdam, Crete, Milan, Venice, Rome, Hong Kong and Singapore.

During my first trip in 2012 to Amsterdam I fell in love with the street art there and that’s when my passion for urban art began.

In June 2015 the work Amsterdam inspired work I produced was exhibited at Het Kunstenaarsbal (Amsterdam Cultural Festival). That same year the NUArt street art festival came to my home town of Aberdeen for the first time where I worked as a volunteer, where I met with other local like minded people. They asked me to join the ThrowUp Gallery, a collective of like minded street artists who I have worked on a number of projects and delivered workshops with. This is when I began spraypainting for the first time. 

Moving from painting large scale street art inspired canvases to walls I began experimenting with an idea I had for a workshop painting on old spray cans which would have otherwise been thrown away. I began researching into different cultures, tribes, tribal gods and ritual masks and painting these onto the old spray cans.  Referencing my own background and fusing my signature style with the cultural inspiration. Tribe All is a play on the words so the message of togetherness really comes across. Tribe All, as in we are all one! It is also a play on my initials, AT, but in reverse. The name ties both myself, my inspiration as well as my mission together.

How would you describe your work to someone seeing it for the first time?

My artwork I like to think is fun, colourful and vibrant. With an urban twist. Drawing inspiration from all corners of the world, my spraycan paintings show a mixing of styles and artistic currents that refer to distant and different cultures, fusing these together on the canvas. Fantastic animals coming from ancient oriental paintings, exotic animals, South American traits, bright colours, elements of contemporary everyday life such as the spray can. I try to transmit an inner energy and fusion of elements giving the viewer a fantastic world in which everything is possible.

What have influenced your works?

I have always been a big fan of both German Expressionism, Primitive and Street art. A number of artists linked to these movements have been of huge influence to me ever since I was at art school.

Art should, I feel, lay bare what I perceive to be the inner essence of things through expressive interpretation. Why should a painter be content to sit down before nature and paint it to the best ability? Why should we have to fill the demand that we should ‘paint what we see’? I feel that the child in us stubbornly remains within us always, therefore why not face the basic facts of image making honestly?

My paintings began as simple experiments in media, a journey of combining violent brushwork, exaggerated colour and energy to create a heightened and distorted actuality. My intention within these works is to make an almost physical attack on its viewer, primitive tightly packed compositions to form a mixing of styles and artistic currents that refer to distant and different cultures, fusing these together on the canvas

If you could collaborate with any artist past or present, who would you select and why?

It would have to be Jean-Michel Basquiat. His style was rough, energetic and extremely gestural. Something I have always been a great admirer of and have experimented with myself. His paintings are also very colourful and narrative. Many of his paintings are very large, dynamic and powerful in size. A room full of them is truly a statement. He worked hard - and intelligently - at developing a consistent style that kept its “street” and black origins but was still exciting, well-composed (if inconsistent), interesting and engaging to the cognoscenti and larger art world. His work was extremely decorative, but also socially conscious, an unbeatable combination in upper and upper middle class art circles.

They tell a vivid story and they tell it in a way that is unlike that of anyone else - just as an artist should. He bridged the gap between street art and ‘high art’ that very few have done.

What can we expect to see from you in the future?

You can expect to see lots more of the spraycan paintings. I have a wealth of cultures I have yet to delve into so have lots of new ideas just waiting to emerge.

I will be taking part in a number of exhibitions in Europe in the next few months - in Venice, Milan and 2 shows in Rome one being the International Art Fair there but to name a few as well as here in the UK. 

My Tribe All t-shirts will be showcased this September after a 2 year wait with Event Savo’ which will be opening Milan Fashion Week in September where Tribe All will be paraded as ‘New Talent’.

MY TOP 5 ARTWORKS

1 - PANTHER BORUCA SPRAYCAN

2 - JAGUAR BORUCA SPRAYCAN

3 - CATRAGENA SPRAYCAN 1

4 - 全族 {TRIBE ALL) SPRAY CAN

5 - JAPANESE KITSUNE SPRAYCAN