Justin Southey Interview

November 2, 2013 9:30 am Published by weareverb

Justin Southey is an artist based in Cape Town, South Africa. He is also one of the artists who did a deck graphic for the new Verb Artists Series 2013 range, which will be here soon. We caught up with him to chat about his graphic and what went into it…

What made you decide to take on this project?

I have always been secretly envious of the fact that Bruce Mackay got to do one in your last release, so I was very stocked when Verb approached me to do a board of my own.

Name 1 thing you’ve lost and 1 thing you’ve found, worth mentioning.

I found a wife, and lost my spare time.

Tell us more about your artwork. Why did you decide to do what you did? What is the story behind it?

I happened to be overseas when I was asked to design a board, so it felt right to make a board about ocean adventures, the discovering of new lands and strange creatures, and of course the illusive search for hidden treasure.

You do understand that, through the execution of your artwork onto the bottom of a skateboard deck, most of the replicas of your artwork will be thrown around, and get scratched and broken in the street right? How does that make you feel?

Great, I do the occasional drop of street art, so I am used to people trashing, stealing, and adding to my artwork.

Doing a graphic to be applied onto a skateboard deck is essentially just creating an artwork for a different size and shape canvas than normal. What excites you about the idea that your artwork is going to feature on a deck as opposed to doing a regular print?

I love doing work on different mediums and for different applications, so I am stoked to get the opportunity to try doing it for a skateboard.

Name 5 verbs that describe your process when you were creating your graphic.

Think. Draw. Erase. Redraw. Save (& send).