New Friends: Robert Seikon

Robert Seikon is a Polish painter and muralist. His work can be seen across the globe covering walls and buildings with it's abstract shapes, minimalist style and jaw dropping composition. We sat down with Robert and spoke to him about his process, his background, happy accidents and more. 

Hello my name is Robert SEIKON I'm a Polish artist. My base is graffiti from a small kid, I finished the Academy of Fine Arts and during the last few years I'm trying to live only from my art. 3 years ago I found my love and I moved to Greece. With Anastasia we live in the Greek countryside. Besides art, my second big passion is nature and planting different species of trees, vegetables and herbs. In that process I found a lot of new inspirations for my new creations.  

 
How do you go about selecting where you paint? (Do you have a selection process Buildings walls etc, do you think about the environment just as much as the work itself) 

Yes, that true environment became important for me during the last few years. My personal selection of walls is more specific, not all of them will give me some fun. I like to spend more time on research, observing everything that is going around and talking with owners to listen to the history of the place. I know that from base my art is non figurative but I like to create elements that can be in dialogue with place.  

I don't have a final photo of the wall, but earlier this year I was painting a cafe in Athens and it's located in an old shoe shop. I created one of shapes on wall that reminds classic old type of shoe, its not visible for first look but when you gonna go thru in to story of place you will find it. 

 
What does a typical process look like for you? 

 
From the beginning I can always choose one of two ways of my work. First one is based totally on freestyle. I'm trying to create a situation when I'm asking many questions. Painting elements sometimes out of logic and every step trying to figure out how to connect them. In this process Im imagine a few steps forward. From the other side, especially when I know that I'm gonna spend more days on one wall production, I'm starting with sketching on paper, which I think gives me the biggest freedom of moves and it's a more natural way of creativity before the final complete project on the computer.     

 

I think in the past when I was younger a big part of this was anger and stress, this was something that was motivating me to go out from home and paint graffiti without any controle. Last 10 years have changed me a lot. I focus more on no stress painting travels. I like to create in abandoned places, I'm feeling good and creative during my painting sessions in the countryside. Exploration and being surrounded by nature definitely motivates me to create.     

Of course with collaborations with clients I'm open for suggestions about project, but If someone wants to have painting in way that I'm not feeling ok I'm always ready to quit it. I like to have small freedom during work with my clients. Always Im giving myself the last  20% of realizing freestyle that nowonece will see it before on sketch. This makes me also more happy with the final result. Most boring will be for me to create a mural 1:1 with a sketch, where there is surprise on the end if you know exactly how your mural will look on the end :)

Hahah happy accident, difficult all accidents are mostly not funny at all for me. 

I painted a few walls in my life that I was crazy excited about location, surface and size but my dream location is somewhere in a deep forest with a medium size concrete wall. 

See more of Robert's work here. 

Photography by: Adam Kozłowski / Robert Seikon