No Hope Kid Interview

Tell us about what you do?

I’m a graphic design student who draws and make stickers. I’ve always found drawing relaxing; I drew throughout school, and started watching cartoons from which I developed my own drawing style.

Where do you get your inspiration?

Uh, from some natural herbs, Adventure Time, and other street artist doing some great work like Houl, JRB and Mulga.

What's the story behind your name?

This girl, who dropped out of beauty school, didn’t have a job; told me I was going to be a no-hoper if I continued doing graffiti. This is whilst I was doing a double degree and working 3 jobs. So I thought of the typical idea of a no-hoper, so like a kid, in a onesie, with his arse hanging out, smoking a doub and giving you the finger. So I drew that and then I pasted that all over her front door, just like “Fuck you bitch.”

So that’s where I came up with the idea of No Hope Kid, then I started drawing by doing different onsies with different types of animals. From there I started to really enjoy spending time drawing so I reworked my style to what it is now; more like Regular Show style and from there I started adding beards, because I like beards. Then I started doing animals, my hipster monkey and birds. I love birds, and anteaters and honey badgers; they are da bidness.

So once I had developed that style that I liked, I started to stick them up more. I recently gave out a whole bunch of stickers on campus so people could stick them up themselves.

What's next for No Hope Kid?

I want to make some t-shirts, I’ve just started doing skateboards, want to do more installation art on surfboards and across multiple skateboards as panel art. And then I want to start doing a bit of industrial design, and some more paste ups.

Have you done paste-ups before?

Yeah, paste ups and spray painting around Curtin. They’re gone now though; we have this guy in Curtin with ski goggles, and like a life jacket who cycles around and spray paints over graffiti paint with the wall colour paint and like, tears down paste ups. And I know who he is, cause I make coffee for him at work, and I’m like “I’m the guy you’re tearing down!”

Where can we find more of your work?

Braddon, Mawson, Civic, on the UC Campus, Curtin.

pARTy Art Tournament

A few of Canberra's fresher creatives came out for the University of Canberra's Graphic Design Club run art tournament. Dubbed "pARTy" with a faulty neon sign on the poster done by none of that the steeziest kid in UCGD; Mr Manok. The night featured a prize ladder, endless cheap art supplies and free goon, so you know it was a good time. 

The grand prize of the tournament was a legit Wacom graphics Tablet, and there was also a raffle for some delish Mr Manok goodies (which you can also purchase with money from her website). Artists worked on a variety of surfaces (lots of plywood, really) and with a bunch of mediums, creating works from highly skilled and beautiful drawings to weird abstract sculptures that the misinformed may mistake for garbage (I'm talking of my own work of course).

In the end the Wacom prize went to film maker, Simone Thompson, whose lack of punctuality didn't hinder the quality of her work. Although all the work produced was pretty outstanding, other honourable mentions went to James Anthony, No Hope Kid and Andrew Eastern.

The pARTy continued afterwards at La De Da for another quality Messy Hands; Down the Rabbit Hole featuring neon body painting and oh so many sweet beats.