MR. FAHRENHEIT is a German stencil artist living in LONDON. The first time I ever saw a stencil piece painted and pasted by him was on Redchurch Street, back in May 2011. It was a reproduction of the famous comic and iconic duo STAN LAUREL and OLIVER HARDY, sprayed across a double page of The Financial Times dated December 31st 2010. Soon after that seminal discovery, I contacted MR. FAHRENHEIT with an interview request whose outcome was originally posted on a previous PLIPP blog in July 2011. Over the years, the style of the stencilist has remained immediate and referential, most often in the form of rough and raw portraits of artists, actors and athlethes of significant social or political pertinence. Since 2009, MR. FAHRENHEIT has deployed enough punch and mastery so as to impact our daily urban narrative, with so much dark enlightement and desperate illusion, in a way that it is unlikely any other artist working on this same stencil genre could ever match. As MR. FAHRENHEIT is about to release the conclusion of his artistic trajectory (Stenciled Part II), you are invited to drift back to 2011 and feel again the nascent vibe of our first encounter :
PLIPP : Would you please tell us more about your background ?
MR. FAHRENHEIT : Well … I can tell you that MR. FAHRENHEIT was born in the last century, growing up in a city with thrilling live and street art on the doorsteps. He was travelling since he could walk, visiting the whole of EUROPE and then later lots of other countries. Early on, he faced lots of different cultures and he met people in remote corners of the world. Starting painting was an expression of the funky MR. FAHRENHEIT soul. Walking through the streets of European cities, he discovered stencil graffiti and got influenced and really excited … MR. FAHRENHEIT was literally floating around in ecstasy ! Finishing his first stencil was the moment he found himself burning through the sky to thousand degrees and that is why he called himself MR. FAHRENHEIT. Soon was MR. FAHRENHEIT cutting stencils at the speed of light.
PLIPP : Where are you active right now ?
MR. FAHRENHEIT : In terms of location, no matter where of course, but mostly in LONDON. There, MR. FAHRENHEIT is pasting his artwork onto many walls. He has also some bearing to BERLIN, BRISTOL and HAMBURG and every time he visits these cities he leaves some artwork somewhere in the streets. But anyway, every town and place is good for some street art. His last escape to DUBAI earlier this year left the city less naked and more colorful. Using stencils allows MR. FAHRENHEIT to create more unusual pictures and repeat a special painting in a different but yet similar way. Doing lots of his pieces on Financial Times newspaper allows him to play with more colors and different layers. He likes to surprise people walking in their town, seeing something they didn’t expect and to conjure a smile into their faces. For example, his campaign « Q R SO PORNO BABY ! » shows QR codes in a different way than people have known so far. Trying to read the code with their mobile phones, they would get the message « U R SO PORNO BABY ! » … Because everybody is porno, in different ways but always unique and individual.
PLIPP : What is your perspective about street art ?
MR. FAHRENHEIT : Honestly, he doesn’t know. But what MR. FAHRENHEIT sees is something that comes up with new expressions since forty years, a movement that creates different styles and gives artists the opportunity to contact their audience every day in a direct way. Street art is spreading its messages across town, really ! And MR. FAHRENHEIT also thinks that neither the police nor laws can stop this street art movement … It gives something to the people in town, people like it … Well, some do not, obviously … But they are confronted with it and they have to think about the messages, conscious or unconscious.
Facebook : Mrdot Fahrenheit
Instagram : Mrdotfahrenheit
Website : Mrdotfahrenheit.co.uk
Credits : Photos used in illustrations 1, 2 and 4 (from the top down) have been taken by the author in LONDON (1) and BERLIN (2, 4). Photos used in illustrations 3, 5 and 6 have been provided by MR. FAHRENHEIT, based on his artwork done in BRUSSELS in 2013. The panel in illustration 3 was assembled by the author.
Note : Additional excerpts from the interview of MR. FAHRENHEIT will be published in a new book due to be released by BRIGADIER PLIPP end of 2018.
Copyright BRIGADIER PLIPP for MAEDIA Publishing for the text and the photos unless indicated otherwise.