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Hi! I'm Thiago Ritual I'm from Sao Paulo Brazil
I'm a visual artist and a graffiti artist
I started back in the days 18 years ago.
doing graffiti and I'm doing art since I'm
a teenager like or twelve, I don't know.
I discovered I was really doing art when I was
15-16. The first time I have done
street art or graffiti
was a friend of mine he's today a
tatoo artist and he's called Preto. He's known in graffiti before
the year 2000.
He was used to write "o vivo"
3D stuff and some
traditional Brazilian letters
My city is really poor in energy
too much things going on and then as I said
it could be the good energy or the bad energy
I was trying not to do that because
I heard some stories of guys and what happened to them
what the police can do if you get caught painting (illegaly)
I thought that it was too dangerous for me and then
actually I've just started and danger became my passion for
doing that thing and
to be illegal or
you start to be brave in the streets
even Sao Paolo is the kind of city that can eat you if you don't eat Sao Paolo
so it's like
a massive city and
you need to shout for yourself
to say that you exist at some point
Wellito Neri and Jermain Batitsta were two guys
the cause
really inspirational when I really started doing graffiti
my style was like school and
half of a heart. I was just trying to
balance those two different things
like the death and the passion you know
it was like really symbolic stuff
and. then like, the name like it was like something you need
to
decide some name. I've never signed
my art before. I started to put the
put the three first letters of my name T H I
I was listening Cypress Hill and I remember
the encart of the album which was
full of art. The CD was called "Temples of Bloom"
with some buddhists things with
different stuff had that stamp, a little stamp designed
where it was written "ritual herbs" and that made me think
it suits with my job because I was
starting to do my "leaves"
and roots or flowers. So my idea was
tell something to people that were more from
the city center of Sao Paolo where it's full of buildings, cars
pollution
"there were before some nature, green stuff
and my work was trying to say something like that
before, here, there were some nature
and now it is a building instead, so that was the idea.
That's building with the time but my basics colors are
yellows and greens and browns
because I use the nature and try to bring
somewhere there is no nature
I try to add some "nature", some seeds
So that's why the name
"Ritual", because the nature is a ritual process
like the way things grow or the way things are moving
the whole nature process.
The colors are part of this process, because
we are in a modern world
and I try to create my
leaves and my flowers in a modern interpretation
so that's why you have those light colors as well, like green or
light orange in order to be more
modern in my concept. I've never
thought that my work could be interpreted
in a political way. I've never really made it for that
but if I start thinking and the way I was doing it
I don't know if people get it that way
because it was flowers and leaves
I was trying to say that before
the place was full of nature and now it is full of buildings
I think green is the color of the "life"
with the leaves and the roots
that I am creating by myself
and different interpretation I had
I definitely want to push more in that
political way. But I've never thought about it
it's more like you know
show to the people
that they should care more about that thing.
They just destroy the world
just because we have more buildings
more cars, more everything and
those massive companies which don't care about it
about the nature and the planet.
It's just more technology
more industry and more massive changes in the world
and I don't think that they want to stop that
a lot of people are just going that way
they are inside that bubble
and consume more and more and nobody think about
that tree that shoud be replaced.
Everything give me help for doing what
I'm doing today with my art. Everything
is reflecting in my art. It can be even the people
from my town.
Everyone.
The homeless guy when I was skate boarding
or when I was walking in the street and you could meet some guys with who
people don't usually stop to talk
Skateboarding brought me that and
the place where I came from brought me that as well
everyone is the same. We don't have any differences at all.
If some people think they are different because they have more money
or because they are famous but
in the end everybody is the same
Everything reflects in my art
the way I have met with people
and the way I exchange with people
no matter if he is the owner of the gallery or I can exchange with that homeless guy
stop and talk to him. I can learn with him
and he can learn with me
I think that everything is reflecting in my art.
Graffiti is
an other thing. People think they can have a graffiti inside their house
or graffiti inside the gallery but
you don't have that. Graffiti is an illegal thing
Graffiti is: you meet up with friends or you go all alone
and you make a plan to paint that spot
and you can get caught for that, you can go to jail
or even get into troubles. People
already lost their lives. It happened
recently a kid in Miami.
Lot of the guys in Brazil passed away in Brazil.
because of all of that so
graffiti is a thing that you can't have in your house or
in the gallery.