Evolution of Form

Before I get into the main focus of this newsletter, I want to say:

Welcome to Nontxt!

I’ve been really surprised at the initial reception the project has received and I hope you stick around for the ride.

Now to get down to business. In this first installment of Nontxt, I want to talk a little bit about creative growth and the meandering ways that my own work has evolved my lifetime. And when I say lifetime, I mean it. Going back to my days in the Los Angeles graffiti scene of the 90’s, I have just never stopped being an artist. Of course, my work has changed dramatically since then but I can distinctly see where that influence guides my work in the present. That was the first creative community that welcomed me and it’s where I discovered the drive within myself to be creative. At a time when there were not a lot of institutional resources for Black and Brown kids in L.A., it was a subculture that, at least initially, focused on what you could create and not who you were or where you were from. Over time, like every street level movement, it became commercialized but I wouldn’t be writing this newsletter if not for my time running the streets in pursuit of fame.

After high school, I developed a drawing style that paid homage to my roots and a knack for drawing characters. Some early success in the then burgeoning streetwear scene (think FreshJive and Alphanumeric) led to the creation of a small clothing line called “Antisocial” that I started with my good friend Talo. That experience peaked with my first international exposure, a feature in the Japanese skate/fashion magazine “Ollie” and led to a lot of work for a brand called Minor Problem in the early 00’s. It was nothing too lucrative but it didn’t really matter to me at the time, I was living the dream in my eyes and when you’re 24, that can be enough.

Over the next decade I kept making work and showing it in galleries occasionally, though it was also during this period that I started taking photographs so my attention was divided. As a result, although I kept progressing from a technical perspective, conceptually my paintings and drawings had become stagnant. I knew that I wanted to move away from the aesthetic that I was known for but change is hard and life doesn’t slow down. By 2015, I had gotten married, become a father, and my photography career had really started to take off. As a result, I put my art/design on the back burner for a while. Even so, I never stopped creating and accepting projects but art wasn’t my only focus during that period. It wasn’t until 2020 came around and the world looked like it was collapsing that I found myself returning to my practice with a renewed sense of determination.

The beginning of the pandemic and the lockdowns that followed changed everything. In those stressful first days, I stayed up all night experimenting with different styles and concepts. It was a throwback to my youth when I used art as a coping mechanism during stressful times.

I leapt headfirst into abstraction in the pursuit of a universal way to communicate that was unbound by recognizable forms and figurative outlines. That initial thesis has remained at the forefront of my recent work. Those first, volatile months were a new beginning for me and represent a clear demarcation between my early work and my current practice.

Thank you for reading this first installment of Nontxt. I hope that sharing a bit about my creative evolution can aid or inspire yours. Or that, at the very least, it was interesting to read. Remember, you can find more of my work at Nonstndrd Creative and I sell zines and self published art/photography books at my online shop.

Stay safe out there.

-Kwasi B. (aka Nonstndrd)