When Tempe muralist Such Styles was growing up, street art was virtually nonexistent. It wasn’t until he read Getting Up: Subway Graffiti in New York by Craig Castleman, a book chronicling the artwork of pioneering graffiti writers in NYC, that he was inspired to start a graffiti art scene in Arizona.
“They were taking the basic alphabet and they were manipulating it and changing it around, embellishing it, kind of making their own new alphabet and I had never seen something like this in my entire life,” he says. “I started emulating what I had seen and that is where I took off.”
In the 1980s, graffiti writing wasn’t a felony, he adds. “You would get what was called field cards and after a few field cards, you would have to go do community service.”
Such likens the artists in Getting Up to basketball greats like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. “They are the greats of the greats,” he says. “They, to me, are like the dream team. Those are my inspirations for what I bring to the table.”
Another one of his biggest inspirations: his son, Champ. Today, the duo creates artwork together.
“He had been around it his entire life. I remember him sitting in a stroller as a toddler and just watching, unable to talk but just sitting there looking,” Such says. “I knew that he could draw, I knew he had that skill, so he gravitated on his own.”
When Champ was in school, he would draw his name on his notes and wear shirts with spray paint on them. His teachers didn’t understand.
“They’d say, ‘Well, that’s vandalism’ or ‘Isn’t that a little narcissistic to just draw your name all the time?’ I had all these shirts from people who were catalysts for street art, they would give me shirts with spray paint on them,” he recalls. “This is a very beautiful thing my dad did and then I remember it not being accepted, but I didn’t care because my dad does it. I’m going to do it.”
Now, the Styles’ artwork is not only accepted, but celebrated. They recently collaborated on an Arizona-inspired mural at Tempe Marketplace, a colorful piece honoring where they came from: the desert and the traditional graffiti scene.
“The biggest thing that I based it off of in terms of style and technique was the original forefather graffiti, subway graffiti, New York-style,” Champ says. “You got the drips, you got the colors, you got the splashes. You got the authenticity, the movement. There were no projectors used, no paintbrushes, no shortcuts.”
One thing the father-son team prides itself on is that all of their work is “100 percent by the can and the hand,” Champ says.
The mural features iconic Tempe imagery like A Mountain, the light rail and the Mill Avenue Bridges and a blast of colors inspired by Arizona sunsets.
“I love the desert and I like the spirituality that it brings,” Such says. “I love our terrain.”
Such and Champ also recently teamed up to create a body of work dedicated to retro video games that is currently hanging in the Tempe History Museum. Last year, the city of Tempe awarded them the Excellence in Arts and Culture Award. From field cards to to public art commissions, they never lose sight of their heritage and why they started in the first place.
“We try to do a good service for whoever we’re doing work for and we try to honor ourselves the same way,” Such says. “We always try to put our best foot forward and then never forget that we’re having fun out there, too.”
