Some 20 years ago, his train commutes in and out of the centre of London stirred Mylo Elliott.
The colourful street art and vibrant graffiti tags, their manipulation of letters and words and their place on the fringes of the art world, which he would see on a daily basis inspired him.
Sometimes, words don’t come to Mylo as easily as he would like and he’s always been interested in how accessible, or not, words are for people.
This is a concept central to Mylo’s art and the manipulation of words, a core aspect of graffiti, meant that his preferred tools have always been a spray paint can and a marker, rather than a brush.
He used to consider himself a tagger, leaving his personalised signature on the world for many years. However, he has since begun to develop and refine his skills, changing the context of his art by bringing it off the streets and making it, as he says, “more positive.”
Mylo said, “there’s an idea which is central to graffiti that the artist is giving back to their community. I have taken an art form from the streets, and processed or examined it. By bringing graffiti into the world of fine art, I’m inviting peoples to share and comment on my work. It’s a pleasure to be exhibiting at University Hospital Llandough; I’ve been in hospital myself before and I’m really happy that my work could help engage a new audience here at Cardiff and Vale UHB.”
Mylo Elliott’s mini exhibition will be displaying in the Information Centre outside the Hearth Gallery in University Hospital Llandough until the 12th Feb.
He also has an exhibition of work being shown at Cardiff Metropolitan University, Llandaff Campus, at 4pm on the 7th February.