Who’s John Kaye?
Who’s John Kaye by Natalie Popovski – This still life was taken from inside the studio of Rhys John Kaye, AKA Kill John Kaye, an internationally renowned street artist.
The night before meeting Rhys in his studio I had fallen asleep while watching his documentary. It was a visually stunning compilation of Rhys as he travelled through the countryside of South East Asia looking for walls to paint and finding common ground with the locals through means other than language. The film was tied together by Rhys’ narration as he read aloud excerpts from his journal that chronologically coincided.
Having arrived at his studio, I realised I might have benefited from doing a little more research into him. I’d met him briefly at a portrait prize and had heard a few friends fan-girl him, and he seemed like an interesting subject.
He was in the process of moving between studios, having left Korea almost a year ago Rhys had come back to the Gold Coast to settle only for a short while, however, COVID delayed his plans to move to Paris. The temporary studio was located downstairs from his best friends marketing agency. I had peaked through their offices and was impressed by the setup – it was filled with Mac desktops, Kaws statues, Terry Richardson coffee table books, custom neon signs and other pop-culture collectables. Obviously high-end and on-trend.
Rhys sat across from me wearing a black hoodie, black shorts, and low-rise docs covered in paint… kind of like a hoodlum kid wagging school. We were surrounded by his art.
I sat on a couch next to a concrete side table with a stack of books, Basquiat, New Renaissance, Cy Twombly. There were two waist-height cement pillars with cupids sitting atop – the wings had broken off one of them and had been placed next to him. There was a gin bottle filled with dead roses – a trademark of his – and he had replaced the label with his own artwork. Around the corner was a safe turned art piece that Rhys had accidentally locked the passcode inside of.
Rhys paints on everything.
Over the past few years, his art had moved from street to gallery. He paraphrased the transition by saying that he had only ever been interested in painting walls, but suddenly he saw more value in painting canvas.
In his words “I never like anything I paint, but it gets me closer” and I suppose that’s most artists struggle. Rhys’ murals are bold, bright, expressive and defined. Having chaotically travelled for the better part of a decade, his work is a complete mash-up of everything he’s experiencing. The way it comes out is expressive, disjointed, loud and hits in you in the face – bursting out in every direction, and it all beautifully comes together with bold defined lines.
His new style though is leaning towards something a little softer, something a little less defined, and a lot more personal. Broken hearts, longing, intimacy and solemnity define this new style. He’s slowed down and travelling less, and is taking the time to explore the intricacies, the subtitles, and the grey areas.
He spoke of the success he had gained by painting murals all over the world, but also from working with major brands whose marketing departments are more or less looking to appropriate street culture. He was disillusioned by the industry and spoke about how disconnected the process was. Someone like Nike or Adidas will come to you with a brief, you deliver a concept, and it gets passed down the line until your artwork ends up an inverted and shrunken copy of what it once was.
I thought of the stack of Saski catalogues sitting behind me – the activewear brand to a famous influencer – and wondered if he saw the irony in him working downstairs from one of Gold Coasts most brand-forward marketing agencies. I had a look at their website and the homepage is a black screen with the words “Selling Creative by the Kilo” in rotating 3D font.