Lone Butte artist Live-D D-evil is looking to bring a lick of sticker culture to the South Cariboo.
D-evil, who prefers to go by his artist name, has created art for stickers since 2005 when he first came across them in Vancouver. At the time, he was taking pictures of street art and graffiti and started noticing the stickers that would often be pasted on street art, alleyway walls and other surfaces.
“I always noticed the stickers and I thought ‘that’s something I can do’ and it just kind of went from there,” D-evil said. “I didn’t have any experience how to make stickers so it was kind of a figure out how to do-it-yourself moment.”
Now D-evil hopes to share his love of sticker art with the Cariboo this fall. He is in the midst of forming the first South Cariboo Sticker Club to put on a fair that would display his and other sticker artists’ work. He’s put out the call to his friends and is already receiving submissions for sticker artists from around the world.
“I have this huge sticker collection and I’ve had a lot of fun putting on art shows in the past. It’s been five years now since I’ve done one so I feel like it’d be fun to bring this kind of art to a small town,” D-evil said.
The sticker art scene is a varied one, D-evil said. It includes graffiti artists, street artists, sticker head “slap taggers,” people who enjoy putting stickers up everywhere and anywhere, and those looking to trade cool stickers with one another.
“It’s sort of like a culture without a currency in a way. A lot of sticker artists just trade and it’s fun because you can get art from all over the world in all sorts of different styles.”
D-evil designs his own stickers and makes them using photoshop and a laser printer. He prints them onto eggshell stickers, a thin layer of vinyl that is hard to peel off once applied to a surface. In the past, he’s also experimented with block printing, stencils, and drawing designs using alcohol markers.
He’s come to love every part of the culture from designing stickers, to printing them, putting them up and photographing them. He said his work is now found around the world - from Vancouver to Paris.
As D-evil honed his skills, he eventually was able to secure himself space in the Acme Studios near East Hastings in Vancouver which he promptly began stickering up. As he began to cover the walls with stickers his landlord suggested he start an annual sticker show for people to come in and see his art, though this soon expanded to include other sticker artists.
“The first year it was one wall in the studio that was covered, the next year it was three walls and by the third year everything was covered: the ceilings, the walls, the floors, all the furniture. It was pretty awesome. That all came from trading with other artists and it kind of grew over time.”
D-evil is looking to collaborate with local South Cariboo artists to help them create their own stickers and get their art out into the wider world. Any artist interested in collaborating with him is invited to reach out to him southcariboostickerclub@gmail.com.
While planning the South Cariboo sticker show is still in its early stages, D-evil said in addition to displaying stickers he intends to provide people with the opportunity to create their own, to promote a collaborative atmosphere. He’d also like to have a DJ and is looking at a few locations in the area to serve as a venue.
“I think it will be pretty low-key, nothing crazy. Just an art show with a crazy amount of art from all different kinds of people.”
patrick.davies@100milefreepress.net
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