On the podcast, I met Canadian mural and canvas artist Mr. Hydde. We talk about how submitting his artwork to local galleries got him a mural project in another country.
Listen to the rest of the episode here https://www.tomrayswebsite.com/2020/11/mr-hydde-canvas-art-and-murals-tom-rays.html
How did you end up getting the mural and you ended up getting it in Brooklyn of all places?
I took a little time off from art and then I started painting again and it was really hard to kind of find the right places to go. It was still like Toronto was really humming along there was a queen west gallery scene. So that was the place you would get your paintings together go show a gallery dealer in queen west in Toronto and you would get a gallery and they would sell your work.
Well, I tried and tried and I'd get little shows here and there not a lot happened. But I kept moving along.
Then I don't know why but about 2013 I was involved with a sort of a group show thing and my work started to take off around that time. I would sell things that I wasn't selling before that time. I was having people contact me from galleries that they wanted to show my work! I don't know why exactly? Maybe the street art kind of feel in my work, the Basquiat kind of feel of some of the stuff I do was more acceptable?
When that happened my Instagram @mrhydde_artist started to grow and people started to reach out with opportunities. Now some of them were pretty crazy and some of them were like, you know, I just want a free painting.
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| Mr. Hydde painting a mural in Brooklyn |
One of the people who reached out to me was Joe from the Bushwick Collective. He asked me to come and paint so I showed up I painted. It was my first mural ever with the help of a few friends up here who I've been painting with my whole life.
So I had a color sense, I know how to make a straight line you know? I know how to design things or lay things down and I just practiced an awful lot with the spray paint. I'm still not perfect with it but I'm pretty good now.
So you hadn't even done spray paint at that point ever?
Well, and to be fair I could have shown up with just some paint cans and painted and that would have been fine. But I wanted to set a challenge for myself.