16 images Artist Reintroduces Fun To The Streets By Creating Graffiti That Interacts With Its Environment

Jamie Paul Scanlon, also known as JPS, was born in 1977 in Weston-Super-Mare, a beach town near Bristol, United Kingdom.

His creativity manifested from an early age. Jamie was taught by his father, who spent a lot of time in prison and died when he was 18, and his outstanding paintings surprised teachers at school. He went to college to study graphic design after high school. Unfortunately, the government cut funding, and Jamie was no longer able to pay college and had to drop out. He worked as a shoe repairer and a key cutter after that.

At that time, everything started to go wrong for him. After two of his friends were murdered within six months of each other, he began taking light narcotics, which quickly escalated into a crack-cocaine addiction and excessive drinking.

When he was at his lowest point in 2009, his friend George took him to see a stencil art exhibition in Bristol.

More info: Instagram

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He began carving stencils with a rusted blade, a magazine cover, and a stolen can of high-pressure spray paint after realizing how he’d wasted his life.

However, he had not yet confronted his addiction, and he finally hit rock bottom when he was destitute and sleeping on the roof of an abandoned hotel.

Standing on the ledge of that roof, he debated whether to jump and join his lost friends, but he chose to do the most difficult thing: prove to himself that he could make it in the art world and that, despite growing up on a poor estate, he was not a loser like he’d been raised to believe.

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He began to attend counseling and group meetings, and his life began to turn around.

Pursuing art, he developed his own style and method as his equipment and skills increased over time.

JPS has a distinct style that includes everything from pop culture to lifelike horror movie characters, as well as clever wordplay and precise placement, as well as enormous dinosaurs and small micro stencils. His work can be found in places all over the world, including Norway, Spain, the United States of America, and Germany, where he currently resides.

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“If I’m being honest, my mental health hasn’t been great for the past few months, corona laws in Bavaria have been strict throughout the pandemic and are still strict now, combined with winter weather making painting difficult and the isolation of living so far out in the country, I just struggle on in the hopes of better days ahead.”

“I divide my work into three categories: horror, which is all about placement and terrorizing people, object intervention, which is inspired by street items or fittings, and micro and puns, which I enjoy bouncing between. I rarely do political work because I believe my street art should inspire others and make people smile. Most political works have a short shelf life; they may get a small amount of attention, but a year later they are no longer useful to disseminate.”

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“The wording “enter coin to continue” on my Instagram profile refers to the fight against the collection of artists known as Banksy; it’s all a big hoax, and they blackball anyone they perceive as a danger, which regrettably includes myself. Their media clout is astounding, and if anyone wants to know why I believe it’s a hoax, look up JPS burst balloon on Banksy; I’ve yet to be proven incorrect. But I lost this struggle, and I felt like my career was ended. My perspective on art and life is that art freed me from addiction, and there is no greater satisfaction than painting masterpieces that the rest of the world appreciates.”

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“The wording “enter coin to continue” on my Instagram profile refers to the fight against the collection of artists known as Banksy; it’s all a big hoax, and they blackball anyone they perceive as a danger, which regrettably includes myself. Their media clout is astounding, and if anyone wants to know why I believe it’s a hoax, look up JPS burst balloon on Banksy; I’ve yet to be proven incorrect. But I lost this struggle, and I felt like my career was ended. My perspective on art and life is that art freed me from addiction, and there is no greater satisfaction than painting masterpieces that the rest of the world appreciates.”

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“I’ve lost so many friends to drugs, suicide, and a few other causes that it’s difficult to list them all; I guess you become numb to it over time and I try not to think about it too much; I’ve paid tribute to a few through my work and have a few more I’d like to pay tribute to in this way; I think growing up on a rough estate we were labeled from birth and it’s like that was meant to be our fates; I’

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“My advise to someone just starting out is to keep it basic and paint what you like and can relate to; the stuff that the media declares to be hip will just be utilized to sell a specific brand. In my opinion, it is stale. It’s always nerve-wracking to disobey the law, but I had nothing to lose when I first began out.”

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