Writing Stories with Three Letters: Art and Graffiti by Egs (HC) (2020)

Finnish contemporary artist EGS is one of the most successful of his generation. As one of the first clearly graffiti-rooted artists in Scandinavia EGS had a major solo show in Helsinki's Kunsthalle in 2018. In the spring of 2020 he will be exhibited at The Finnish Glass Museum. EGS works in his own universe, grounded in the use of the three letters in his name only. Whether it's his dynamic ink drawings or the slower but even more hard-to-control media of glass, those three letters is the fundament of his art and the stories he tells. While showing works in museums and galleries internationally, EGS still keeps painting graffiti on the streets around the world. He has become an important figure in the international graffiti community. Both for the quality of his work, but also for an intellectual vibe that goes like a red thread through all of his work, strengthen their output as well as being an open, curious and generous person, doing pieces in the most diverse parts of the world with great respect for the context. In this book, EGS and graffiti-archivist and author Tobias Barenthin-Lindblad discuss EGS' practice in both studio and in the streets. The conversation covers topics directly connected to the artwork that is depicted in the book, but also about the deeper meanings and driving forces of being an artist. How does one bring the energy from painting in the street into a studio? How can you bring the uncertainity in making glass into painting graffiti in the street? How do a painting in an abandoned Finnish factory and a glass sculpture in a gallery communicate? Is an artist measured by a single art work or by his or her body of work? And last but not least: can a word without meaning have a message? Writing Stories with Three Letters goes deep into the art, creativity and theories of one of the most exciting contemporary artists from Scandinavia. "With one leg in classic graffiti and the other in fine art, EGS represents the perfect symbiosis of both worlds. He has taken the long road and the authenticity that radiates from his works is unmistakable." Tony "Rubin" Sjöman "EGS has grown from a graffiti adventurer to a multi-disciplinary artist whose work breaks convention and delivers beauty in the most unexpected ways. Through EGS we learn what it is like for a graffiti artist to reach his full potential and morph from a vandal to a contemporary artist - a damn good one." Ket