Never forget your roots

Somehow we’ve tumbled into an alternate dimension where id-iom are the only name in the art world and we’ve had to resort to writing inspirational messages to ourselves to try and keep it real. ‘Never forget your roots’ we tell ourselves as we think about dropping the cardboard piece on the streets like we used to do then realise we could make far more with a celebrity auction in LA. 

We’ve all seen it happen to celebrities –  first they start off humble and happy to be on the national stage but slowly they morph into globe-spanning self-facilitating media nodes. Well, despite our dip into another dimension it’s not happening to us. We remember our Manx roots. For now at least…

Cheers

id-iom

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Little Red Riding Hood (id-iom version)

Everyone knows the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Literally everyone. It turns out there are striking similarities to stories over the ages from all over the world that have the same basic structure and motifs. So we’ve decided to do a promotional image for our imaginary movie version. 

In the old tales, the wolf and Red are adversaries but in true Hollywood fashion we’ve decided to turn the story on its head and have them fall in love in our retelling. Imagine one of those ‘saving an abandoned cat’ videos you’ve seen on the internet, chuck in Charlize Theron and Idris Elba and some over the top CGI and you’re in the right ballpark.

It is A2 in size and made using the magic of inspiration, acrylic, spray paint, watercolour and paint pen.

Cheers

id-iom

Please do as you’re fu**ing told

Please do as you’re told. If I’ve said it before I’ll say it again. Well, actually I’ve never said it before so instead, I’ll go for ‘if it’s nice say it twice’. So, please do as you’re told.

You might think this has something to do with the current pandemic and you could be right with the pithy advice and colourful rainbow but don’t let that fool you – this is solid advice that can be applied in a countless number of potentially troublesome scenarios from pets and children to house guests and co-workers. Just remember words have power so you’ve got to use them carefully or they run out of juice…

It is 42 x 42 cm and made using Spraypaint, acrylic and paint pen. Drip us a line if you are interested in having this beauty at home… 

Cheers

id-iom

The House of Requirements

There is a house in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun. But that’s not important right now. What is important is the ‘House of Requirements’. It has the ability to produce whatever it is you’re looking for whenever you need it but the key is knowing where to look. Literally anything may be found. The list of potential objects is effectively infinite. All that is required is a rich desire to find said object. In the case of failure it just means you haven’t looked hard enough. A workable solution always presents itself. It’s weird but it’s true. I know because I live there. Sometimes.

All this from some weird desire to produce something to respect the actual building that provided a roof over my head for so many years. And there you have it. It’s odd being an artist sometimes…

Cheers

id-iom

Other people’s graffiti

Other people’s graffiti

In an attempt to bring a bit of levity to my Friday afternoon I’ve come up with a new feature I’m imaginatively calling ‘Other people’s graffiti’. Just putting up pictures of your own stuff seems a little self absorbed so I thought it was about time we branched out and started sharing the love – so each week (or frankly whenever we fancy it) we’ll be posting something that has somehow managed to snag our attention.

Today’s shot was taken at the Queen’s official residence in Scotland – The Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh – and features some ancient graffiti that was, I’m reliably informed, scratched in place over countless days/nights by bored guards. You’ve got to have a seriously mind-numbing number of hours on your hands to consider engraving your whole name and the date in stone by hand using (assumably) the tip of a knife or something similar. That’s dedication (or terminal boredom) for you.

Cheers

id-iom

All kinds of disgraceful going on

All kinds of disgraceful going on

Just last week I went to a house party somewhere in North London. It was all part of some birthday celebrations which turned into a very long weekend indeed. On arrival at said party the door was answered by somebody who invited me in and slyly revealed that there was ‘all kinds of disgraceful going on’. I’ve tried to capture the chap from memory but this is the best I could do. He did look a little bit shifty. I did say it was partway through a long weekend so you can hardly expect my recall to be perfect. Anyway, after a quick perusal in a couple of the rooms I could only agree with him so settled myself in the kitchen with a bottle of vodka for the long haul. I was lucky to make it out of there alive…

Available from idiom.bigcartel.com/products

Cheers

id-iom

Title: All kinds of disgraceful going on
Materials: Paint pen, acrylic, and charcoal
Size: A5

Mother – I’m all funked up (found record re-design)

You want serendipity? I’ll give you serendipity. Although you may need a little background before it seems all that serendipitous. I’ve always loved records and have collected them on and off since I was about 16. I’ve also always been a womble and will pick up interesting things in my travels and take them home (usually to paint on). So what was I meant to do when I rounded a corner near my house and came across an armful of abandoned 12″ records lying by a bin. It was like seeing a load of forsaken kittens lying in the street. I had no choice but to scoop them up and head on my way feeling ever so slightly smug about the whole thing. While I was having a quick check through them (which revealed that they were largely mid 90’s dance) I thought I’d perhaps re-design the covers and then put them back out on the street.

So here’s the first of my redesigns. It was initially this:

But is now the marvel you see at the top. I’ve taken it quite literally and used a stencil of my own mum. Ha! That will hopefully fox someone when it gets back out on the street…

If you want to know which record I’m on about you can find out here:

Cheers

id-iom

The House of Pain(t) – A final farewell (video)

As a memento to our now demolished studio a good friend of id-iom came down to document our work at the ‘House of Pain(t)’ before it was razed to the ground. Here’s a new video he put together in the final days of the house. After watching this I’ve come to realise quite what a place we had. We just need another now…

You can also see the video that Spraying Bricks put together below:

For individual shots of the pieces you can see them on our flickr page here.

Cheers

id-iom

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Another little interview covering our soon-to-be-demolished house…

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SF have had the pleasure of knowing the id-iom boys for many years and along the way there have been some interesting sites… not least the 7am sessions on Brixton Hill with leopard print onesies and facial hair. This interview gets a little closer to the brothers of paint as they answer questions at their Haus of Pain-t

Firstly when is the house there till? and can anyone come and have a look around?

Sholto: The house is probably going to be around for another week or two but we’ve no final date at the moment. We’d love to have people round but i’m not entirely sure how an open house would work out

Hugo: Just the other day a part of one of the rooms in the attic fell down. I’m not talking about a whole collapse here where we can see the clouds in the sky but just…

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The House of Graffiti – Round 2. Fight!

We’ve already revealed a few of the pieces we’ve managed to get up at our soon-to-be-demolished House of Graffiti (see here, here, here and here) and for today’s offering we are revisiting one of the rooms we’ve already covered and showing how it has spread to cover a load more wall space. We originally just had this:

Win when you’re singing

But since Round 1 we have been busy adding more to the surrounding walls. We have an updated version of ‘Win when you’re singing’, a rather scary looking face with 4 eyes and an id-iom logo that stretches lazily over a couple of walls and a wardrobe. There’s one more wall to be finalised and if only I could work out how to take a panoramic shot with our camera I could try revealing it all in one shot – but since i’m a bit of a dunce with the camera unfortunately that won’t be happening today. We’ve still got more paint to spray and walls to fill so we certainly have our work cut out for us to fulfil our wish to have her chock full of graffiti in time for her demolition…

Win when you’re singing & 4 eyes

4 eyes & Win when you’re singing

4 eyes

4 eyes & id-iom logo

id-iom logo on walls & wardrobe

Cheers

id-iom

Related articles

• The House of Graffiti (round 1) (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)