Interview with street artist "Son of Recession"

Remember I posted last week about a story in the Evening Standard in which an artist was given an £80 on-the-spot fine for criminal damage? Well, that was Son of Recession. When walking around Brick Lane and the surrounding areas if you look down at the pavement you will see his work. I was doing just this last Sunday afternoon when I met the artist.

I have uploaded a few of his pieces already, though I only met him the other day. Hid methods are two-fold. One is where he will draw the outline of a persons shadow in marker pen and make a pattern resembling barbed-wire. The other is where he outlines the shadow of an object, for example, a post-box, street-lamp or dust-bin, in "Fragile" packing tape. For a reminder just go back to previous pages, as these works really stand out.

"Son of Recession", or Mattia as his mother calls him, is of Italian origin, though he has been living in London for a few years now. We have had a number of conversations (drunk and sober) about his work, his ethos and the nature of art in general and he comes accross as someone who really believes in what he is doing. I know this sounds a little twee or trite as anyone could come accross in this way, though what I mean is that he has the conviction in what he is doing and the message he wants to impart that is sometimes lacking in one so young (I would guess he is in his early 20's).

If you look at the link to the article in the Evening Standard, there are a number of problems, though these are with the quality of the reporting:

The article states in the headline that "Son of Recession" is a Banksy fan. While this may be true to a certain extent, you can bet that the reporter only put it there to give the story and 'angle', and to make sure the report is near the top of the google rankings.

The reporter was given the name of the artist numerous times, even the following day over the phone, and still got it wrong, naming the artist as David Lin, who is actually a friend of Son of Recession.

There are some more issues, though these two are glaring ones.

I interviewed Son of Recession a week after the story appeared after he told me about this lazy reporting, and I said that maybe I could do a better job and put his side forward in a proper sense. Son of Recession did my outline, though I only wanted to "give the finger" in mine, then he did a live outline on video of my shadow. He works very quickly and likes to explain what is going on during and after his work.

Here is the interview, it's at night and recorded on a mobile phone so apologies for the quality, but I'm sure you'll agree that it is a very interesting interview. It is accompanied by my previous interviews with Mel and David.

Enjoy!