Dialogue in Dirt: An interview with São Paolo street artist Alexandre Orion

It's been two decades since Alexandre Orion first took up graffiti in São Paolo. Today, he is one of a small handful of street artists embracing a non-damaging sustainable art form most commonly known as “reverse graffiti.” Orion considers himself less of an artist and more of an activist, using his project, Ossario, to stimulate the dialogue on the effects of pollution on the human population. His compositions are not done with paint, but rather by wiping away soot to create relief images; as well as by reusing collected soot to paint on other surfaces. His main tools are rags and water. 

Since Ossario broke ground, Orion has used the walls of a busy metropolitan tunnel in his hometown with a series of striking, ghostly skulls that peer out into the darkness at passing drivers. Since then he has expanded his intervention pieces to some other the world's most populous cities, including Mexico City and Rio de Janiero, where a spine painted from soot stands 28 meters high on an industrial exhaust pipe. 

What is your process and what are your tools?

My process is completely free and my tools are whatever enables me to conceive an idea. Ideas have to come before style or technique. I have done a series using reverse graffiti as technique, but my work is always a combination of processes. What I am interested in is not the aesthetics of my works, but how they might set off processes in people's minds.

What methods do you use to create your images?

Just rags and my fingers. My skulls are hand drawn, one by one. The first intervention I got recorded on video was 300 meters long with over 3,500 skulls by the time the city came along to wipe it off.

"Making an intervention that has a social impact is hard, because it depends solely on artistic creation, on the idea and the force a work exerts over the place where it is produced."

How do you collect soot to be reused for paint?

I washed out rags used during the selective cleaning interventions, then waited for decanting and evaporating until only the soot was left, which I made into paint that looks like watercolor, but much more rustic.

Have you faced vandalism charges for your work and if so, have they been fully prosecuted or were the charges dismissed?

No, I have not had any legal issues because my selective cleaning initiatives are legally defined as artistic expression. There is no sponsorship, no association with marketing, and no profit involved. Since almost everything today is done for profit, I would plead insanity if some government took action against me.

How long did it take you to complete the spine on the exhaust pipe? Is the soot paint used there from the tunnel in São Paolo?

It is an 83-by-30-foot painting that took me five days to do using soot taken from tunnels in São Paulo.

When did you first start doing reverse graffiti, also known as grime writing; and which term do you prefer?

I started it in 2004 as a research project, and in 2006 started doing a series called "Ossário."

I prefer selective cleaning because the other two terms are derived from graffiti concepts. This form of intervention by cleaning is a complete subversion of any graffiti rule. It is an intrinsic way of communicating with the city and the waste that society produces.

What others mediums did you use before you started doing grime writing?

I started doing graffiti in 1993, but I never identified with the rules of graffiti. The amount of works in the city, style, and technique has never been important for me. From the beginning, I wanted to start a conversation with the city, with people. I have done photography, video and painting, and if my next idea would be best understood in sculpture, I will do sculpture.

How do you see this art form progressing as an art form, and as an influence on society?

I do not see selective cleaning as an art form, just a technique and it may well be exhaustively used for advertising in the coming years. Cutting out a stencil and going around "power-washing the world” is easy. But making an intervention that has a social impact is hard, because it depends solely on artistic creation, on the idea and the force a work exerts over the place where it is produced.