Every year we try to reinvent our branding for Under Pressure. This keeps us on our toes and also keeps us in touch with up and coming talent.  This year we approached Kirsten McCrea. Kirsten is a Montreal-based artist and illustrator, as well as the founder and publisher of Papirmasse, Canada’s only broadsheet art subscription. (www.hellokirsten.com).  I had some important questions for Kirsten about her involvement in then event and this is what she had to say:

Why the interest in under pressure? This is going to sound sappy, but when I was 20 and still living out West, I saw this really great graffiti show at a gallery in Calgary.  It had work by Other and Produkt and a ton of great writers, and it also had a short documentary about the Under Pressure festival.  That show totally changed my life!  It was 10 times more awesome than anything else I had ever seen in a gallery before (and most since).  I cannot even tell you how excited I was when a few years later I moved to Montreal and Under Pressure was happening right after I got to town.

What is your direction for the under pressure branding? All the stuff this year (t-shirts, logo, and bandanna) has a playing card theme, a loose reference to the Run DMC song ‘Down With the King’ and a nod to all the wicked ass writers who are going to be showing up.  We’ve done a King for the main even shirt, a Queen for the women’s shirt, and a Jester for the volunteers and staff.

As lovely as it is your work/style/medium is very different from graffiti, how do you plan on building that bridge? I guess I kind of feel like there’s a spectrum with graffiti artists on one end and gallery artists who do the kind of work I love on the other, and then in the middle there are all the great people who do both, who have a spray can in one hand a paintbrush in the other.  The reason that I see it as a spectrum is that even though I’m not a graff writer, most of my favourite artists are, and I feel like I have 10 times more in common with that work than the boring shit you see in 90% of the galleries around town.  If I had to choose between only being able to spraypaint or landscape paint for the rest of my life, the choice is pretty clear.  The best work I’ve ever seen all comes from this sort of undefined but obviously growing movement (that I guess you could call lowbrow art) made up of people who paint outside and inside, people who have a populist (as opposed to super pretentious) approach to art, people who make art that can’t be sold because they want to make art, not money.  I’ve got a lot of respect for all the people who come paint at Under Pressure, so hopefully they’ll feel that even though we don’t do the exact same thing, we’re on the same line.

We stood outside Clyde’s in the Pointe-Claire village taking in the unusually cold air of August. A casual 360 of the people holding on to their beer and their cigarettes outside the bar sparked a nostalgic conversation about night buses and the woes of the west. We didn’t know at the time, but that night, our woes got a happy slap in the face.

We made our way to the backroom of Clyde’s to find a small crowd of people (including us) scattered around the room. Not long after that, crowds began to file in. The show started with eager and energetic openers followed up by strong lyricism layered on a live band headed by David Hodges. The evening continued to simmer with Group Therapy and some solid freestyling. Were we impressed? Very.

AND to top that off…$500 was raised towards Under Pressure.  Shut my mouth.

Baby Zoe - member of the Under Pressure family

photo: Raphael Ouelett

An open discussion about Montreal street culture, education and the newbies on the scene who may never manifest the true essence of graffiti.

http://www.nightlife.ca/arts-culture/sterling-downey-under-pressure-bombs-tags-and-thinks-its-way-next-generation