1xRun Thru Interview
Tiger by Low Bros
1xRun: Tell us a bit about this piece, is it still available?
Low Bros: The original is painted with acrylics on wood in June of 2012. We also used a bit spray paint. The original painting was part of a series and our show called “Wild Cats” which we had in Lisbon, Portugal last year. The artwork is still available for 2400 Euro, email [email protected] for availability.
1xRun: Tell us how the idea and execution came about?
Low Bros: We like to work with series and stay at one subject for a while. Therefore we chose to imagine a lot of our characters as gangs, with several members, which we put together to a group, but in the same way we can light up any single “guy” and imagine what he’s like and what is his part of the gang. Everyone got his own name which supports his characteristics. So we often paint triple series with the main characters we focus on and create a surrounding. The actual “Tiger” piece is more iconic and stands for the whole Wild Cats gang. Thats the reason why it’s simply called “Tiger”. The Wild Cats are a gang with this wild and aggressive rapper attitude. It was a lot of fun to work with them and they still appear every once a while in our actual wall paintings.
1xRun: How long did the piece take?
Low Bros: It’s hard to say, because we use to paint on several pieces at the same time. This makes it easier to work together, because on most canvases we’re not able to work simultaneously like we do it on a wall. But let’s say 4 days.
1xRun: What is unique about this piece compared to some of your other work?
Low Bros: We think it’s a strong piece which transports the whole wild cats attitude while standing for it’s own. It’s very iconic and for us the Tiger is one of our favorite animals since we were kids.
1xRun: Why should people buy this print?
Low Bros: The people who feel it will know…
1xRun: Describe the piece in one gut reaction word.
Low Bros: ROOOAAARR.
1xRun: When did you first start making art? What was your first piece?
Low Bros: We couldn’t say that we started at this or that point. We’re drawing and creating things since we were kids, which we continued by painting graffiti. We did it for the fun and passion. Then in 2007 we got an offer to show our stuff in an group exhibition together with some big names. This was a lot of fun and motivated us to push it in this direction as well, but we still didn’t think that we could make a living out of it. The most important step was to team up as Low Bros in the beginning of 2011. So we somehow grew into it.
The first common piece, which we can count to our Low Bros history, was in 2009. It was a weird dude, which we playfully created together step by step. It was a lot of fun and from this point we continued to paint like that.
1xRun: What artists inspired you early on? What artists inspire you now?
Low Bros: In the early days we didn’t have any certain artist, but our uncles who inspired us to go on drawing. One was painting his surfboards with airbrush, the other was drawing little stories with us. Later we got a lot of inspiration out of the pop culture, like comics, cartoons, tv series, martial art movies and video games. Later we discovered graffiti for us and there we found our idols, like Toast, Won, Ces and guys from our local scene in Hamburg, like Tasek and Daim who also appeared in a big urban art exhibition called “Urban Discipline” in 2001. It took place in our hometown and those guys showed what’s possible with spray paint.
Nowadays we don’t really have any big idols anymore. Maybe Os Gemeos and how they work together. We love their exhibitions where they not just hang their paintings, but create a whole world with a special atmosphere. But there are a lot of great artists out there and everyone might inspire us with his work, like giving us a different view on things. Beside all the input you get from the internet, it’s important for us to go to a museum to see the originals as well as subcultural and “lowbrow” exhibitions. Also our crew “The Weird” and our artist friends gives us a lot of motivation and inspire us sometimes.
1xRun: Do you listen to music while you work? If so what?
Low Bros: We listen to a lot of music from Hip Hop, electronic, jazzy stuff and much more.. Depends on the mood. But we also like to listen to audio books while working.
1xRun: If you could collaborate with any living artist who would it be and why?
Low Bros: As we did so many collaborations with great artists, like our crew mates from The Weird, we’re happy if we can do something on our own. It is already a kind of collab we do together and there’s no one we prefer more for painting than each other.
1xRun: What was the first piece of art that you bought? Do you still have it? The last?
Low Bros: Usually we trade pieces with artist we know and admire. One got a nice Birthday piece from Gris1 from Lyon, France, one bought a piece of Berlin based art collective Klub7. Of course we still have them both. We just swapped a piece with Mr.Gauky from London and looking forward to get a piece from Clemens Behr, who makes awesome installations and collages.
1xRun: Where else can people find you?
Low Bros: – Website – Facebook –
-1xRUN