Mr Funky Chicken // Styles

Solo show and book release From 6.08. to 8.08.2021

Opening

Friday, 6.08.2021 from 6 pm to 9 pm
Saturday & Sunday open from 1 pm to 6 pm

RETRAMP Gallery
Reuterstr.62
12047 Berlin
www.retramp.com

Sketches vs. walls

Not a day goes by where the Berlin style writer Mr Funky Chicken is not dealing with graffiti writing. For more than 20 years, Mr Funky Chicken has been intensively involved with letters. The graphic examination of the subject has taken a high priority for him. He is creating new drawings almost every day and depending on the mood they are always different in lines and shapes. His focus is clearly on the further development of his own formal language, with the challenge of how far can letters be deformed/changed so that they still work.

Meanwhile, Mr. Funky Chicken draws exclusively in sketch books and always into the pure, and not drawing with pencil. Each line must sit or remain, and he never removes any page from his sketchbooks, that act like a diary, in which he processes experienced in drawing.

Although he draws a lot and has accordingly a lot of material available – drafts for possible pieces -, he always paints freestyle on the wall. He works without a draft for his pieces on walls and without a finished color concept. What is created on paper, does not work on the wall or the other way round, because there are other swings and shapes and the lines no longer come only from the wrist, but the entire body is used for the execution of large pieces on walls. His approach for creating pieces is to work as sparingly as possible in terms of materials. He paints mainly with wall paint, which he finds for the most part on the street, and uses in addition a few leftover spray cans and a full spray can for the outlines. For lines, he uses the Standard Cap and for everything else the white-pink Fatcap.

Mr Funky Chicken tries to develop constantly to avoid stagnation. There are always phases in which it feels like it’s not progressing, but according to the style writer, it’s precisely these phases that need to be overcome and to stay on the ball. For him, graffiti is not about being particularly good or painting the most blatant styles, but about developing his own signature, creating his own aesthetics and being authentic. Mr Funky Chicken does not stick to a single name, but likes to try out new combinations of letters. The exciting thing about this is to observe how the letters relate to each other and literally change, depending on where they are positioned in the word/name.

His solo exhibition at RETRAMP shows sketches on paper as well as other large works, and is also the opportunity to discover his freshly printed book. The book accompanying the exhibition “Mr Funky Chicken // Styles“ features +230 pages of a selection of black and white scans of drawings made between January 2020 and July 2021.

instagram.com/mrfunkychicken86