LOVE THE LEAF - Nikill interview

Weapon of Choice get down to the bear bones with the artist, clothing designer and music producer Nikill for a brief chat before his move to the Big smoke...

WoC: When did you start making your artwork? Have you always had an interest in art?
Nik: About 9 years ago. I have always been a very visual person, but it wasn’t until my Art GCSE that my creativity took on a life of its own.

WoC: Who were your earlier influences & what inspires you now?
Nik: The whole of the TCF crew played a huge part in my early development as an artist both
with their wisdom and shear skills, with particularly strong influence from Xenz and Ziml. I later
found the work of Will Barras, Mr Jago and Dicy inspiring and eye-opening and thereof they
became strong influential forces as my style began to evolve. Bad weather and newly-bought
music inspire me to work (these days) and help motivate my creativity; gotta have the new
sounds to stimulate the brain matter. However, on a much grander scale, I am influenced and
inspired by outer space. In addition to this, a constant subject of my creativity/artwork is the
sensational feeling that as humans, we are part of something so potentially infinite. This inspires
me to keep progressing and ignore boundaries.

WoC: Where did the leaf logo and ‘love the leaf’ originate from?
Nik: I used to draw/paint alot of trees, leaves and flowers in the early days and so The Leaf
was a bi-product of many roughly sketched versions before ultimately (spray)painting a more
refined version of it, which resulted in the decision to print it. People started to comment on how
much they would ‘love the leaf’, and this was the birth of the brand. It just stuck really.

WoC: Your style is very unique and seemed only inevitable to take that transition onto clothing.
How did that come about?
Nik: It was for two reasons really, firstly the urge to make my artwork more accessible and
affordable and secondly, I wanted to create a safer outlet for getting my artwork and eventually
other artist’s work about as I knew people who were being arrested for vandalism; the streets
didn’t seem to be the place to do be doing this.

WoC: Can you tell us a bit about the music you make and do you think that has helped your
style of artwork to evolve?
Nik: Predominantly, the music I make is hip hop, as I have been interested in this genre of
music for about as long as I’ve been into art; I’ve always loved heavy dark beats. It was
only a matter of time until I began making my own beats, I admit that I’m a control freak,
and anything I think I can do myself I will try and do! It started with fruity loops on my
parents’ vintage PC with a fish bowl screen, using a mic that looked like an injured dog
with one of those cones around its neck, to sample from the desktop speakers. The cone
was an attempt to block out any background noise, yeah I’m a geek like that. I make heavy
hip hop, sometimes it strays into the realms of dubstep, glitch or jazz but its all hip hop to me.
For a while now the subject matter of my artwork has been based around drawings of music
equipment so yeah it’s helped to evolve my style but particularly in influencing my choice of
subject matter. Both my artwork and my music are a representation of myself, I love
technology and I love drawing, the things I enjoy frequently help to give my work form,
the other times I like my work to be more abstract. 

WoC: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Nik: Always a difficult question to answer, it is hard to say, recently my life has taken a turn
in that I have started a degree in Motion Graphics in London so now I think in 10 years I will
be working on films doing visual effects, reflecting on the year i went on tour as an audio/visual
DJ. Something along those lines.  

WoC: Any last words?
Nik: Always do what you love, be ambitious, and never compromise yourself…and listen to
some hip hop while doing so!

Catch Nikill’s solo show at the Weapon of Choice Gallery, opening preview Friday 13th November 6-10pm.
Running until the 6th December 2009.

Interview taken from Weapon of Choice magazine issue 1 out now
http://www.weaponofchoicegallery.co.uk/magazine.php