Duble

[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]W[/dropcap]hen you are a graffiti artist, you already have the perspective that the world is your canvas. For the truly dedicated, this can actually become a legal reality, as you’ll get asked to paint structures all over your city. For local Denver artist Duble, what started out as a career in graffiti has manifested itself as a thriving art career.

“I have always been attracted to graffiti; it was my first love and continues to be a source of inspiration to this day,” he told CULTURE. “I can remember tags on the highway, visiting walls and bridge spots as a kid and wondering how people were able to do that kind of work. As I grew older I had the opportunity to travel and meet practitioners all over the states. I am honored to say that I am part of the RTD crew here in Denver, and a part of the RAILHEADS crew, a California freight painting crew, all of whom I consider family.”

Duble still works in the traditional graffiti medium of spray cans, and draws inspiration from street art into his developed style. “I use aerosol as a medium,” he stated. “In terms of themes, my work over the last five years has been a heavy concentration of cartoon/animation inspired themes, deriving from my love for the genre I grew up on. The ‘end-to-ends’ I do with my main painting partner, Kovet, are often times pulled from our love for the old school cartoons and shows we spent hours watching. Most are drawn out custom, meaning I make the characters from my own drawings. Then the difficult task is taking that sketch into the yard in the middle of the night, and actually pulling it off!”

Cannabis serves a dual purpose in Duble’s workflow: To enhance his imagination while creating and to keep him focused on the task at hand. “I feel cannabis use tends to enhance the work in many instances; the way you might approach a letter or angle can completely change when using cannabis,” he told us. “Patterns are something that can be fun to explore as well on cannabis, diamond, dot patterns, tiger stripes, brick patterns, cloud patterns, the list goes on and on. But all are fun to explore and analyze through overlaying and underlying them into the piece or the character. Cannabis can also get one motivated and more focused, in a sense tunnel minded towards the task at hand, which for me is a good thing. I get the work done then on to the next task.”
Look for Duble’s work all across the West this spring, as he has many exciting plans ahead. “I have some HO scale trains in the works for a show called ‘Riding Dirty’ in Seattle this May, some new works for the Tiny Giants store and showcase in L.A. which I believe is in May as well,” he told us. “And some personal works that I have in progress.” With all of these projects in his future, the Denver graffiti and art worlds are about to see even more of Duble.