BEERENS.

BEERENS.
The story of a French street artist firmly rooted in the
tradition of graffiti.
by Gabriel Ellison-Scowcroft
An aerosol spray-can is shaken. The metal pea inside raps smartly against thin
aluminum walls, the propellant now mixed and pressurized. Michael Beerens’
finger tightens on the valve. Eyes narrowed in concentration dart back and forth
across a whitewashed wall. He raises his right arm with a deft, self-assured
movement and firmly presses down with his index finger. The can spits to life.
Hiss, whoosh, shhhhhh. The once unblemished wall bears a dark red splash. The
motion is repeated and letters begin to form. A smile spreads across Michael’s
face as he steps back to admire his handiwork: his pseudonym illuminated by
his headlamp, permanently stamped on the wall of an abandoned mine in Paris.
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Michael Beerens operates in the world
of street and graffiti art. His work
spans a wide spectrum of different
styles: from huge paintings in public
spaces, to stencil-like posters glued
to walls, to mysterious messages in
underground bunkers, to tags on a
­myriad of surfaces.
“What I find interesting is that when
you paint in the street you don’t ask
permission from anyone,” says ­Michael.
“You take the right yourself. So legally it’s a bit difficult
because if you’re caught you’re risking a fine. But if
you don’t get caught then you’re completely free to say
­whatever you want: you’re not censored.”
The difference between street art and graffiti is
­probably less clear-cut than you think. One perception
is that street art is legal and graffiti is not, but there are
lots of artists, Michael included, who operate in a kind of
grey area in between.
Michael prefers to practice street art as independently
as possible. This means that he risks being fined if he
is caught. But because public perception of street art
has changed so dramatically, Michael is able to paint
out in the open in relative safety if what he is painting
­resembles what people perceive to be ‘street art’ rather
than ‘graffiti.’ Many people seem to think that graffiti is
less attractive to the eye than street art. But the reality
is that the latter wouldn’t exist without the former.
“There is a big problem now with the perceived divide
between graffiti and street art,” says Michael. “Most
people will say that graffiti is ugly and street art is
­
­beautiful. People have separated the two in their minds.
But most street artists started by doing graffiti. So it’s
really a single universe and you can’t separate it.”
The seeming division between street art and graffiti
has been reinforced by the recent explosion in p
­ opularity
of (among others) Banksy and Shepard Fairey, a.k.a.
the artist behind Obey. Street art
has t­aken on new legitimacy and
popularity. While a Banksy painting
­
now sells for half a million euros, there
was a time in the not-so-far-off past
where people wouldn’t have looked
twice at a ­stencil on a wall. Just like
with so many other things that have
become ­
enormously popular, perhaps
it took being illegal and judged for art
performed w
­ ithout permission in the
street to be ­rechristened ‘street art.’
“In the end, it’s really the same thing,” says Michael.
“It’s the act of painting on walls.”
When people refer to graffiti now, they are often
­referring to the act of tagging, or writing a pseudonym in
characteristic graffiti script. This is how Michael started
painting in the street. At school, he wrote the names of
his peers in different scripts and when people reacted
positively, he started to paint on blank walls next to the
highway and in train stations. In the beginning, graffiti
was a kind of competition for Michael. He and his friends
competed with other graffiti artists to do bigger, more
daring, more colorful tags in an increasingly wide array
of locations around Paris.
Part of Michael’s love for his art stems from this kind
of urban exploration. While he now focuses mainly on
street art in public spaces, he also explores abandoned
buildings, mines and bunkers to explore and leave his
mark. He returns to the Carrière Hennocque mine,
­located about 30 ­kilometers north of Paris in the town of
Mery sur Oise, about 10 times a year to investigate new
sections, paint and look at other artists’ graffiti. Because
the mine is almost ­entirely sealed off, any graffiti that
Michael does inside will be protected from the elements.
“I like the idea that 200 years from now someone could
be exploring the mine, doing exactly what I do now, and
they would see my painting and know that I was here.”
It has taken hours for the outline of a panda to take shape. Hours of Michael’s hand clenched firmly
on a plastic broom handle, at the end of which a soft paint roller is attached. It squelches as it slides
its way up the wall, leaving a trail of glistening gray behind it. It travels the contours of the panda’s
forlorn face, another layer to add texture and perspective. Michael’s hands are flecked with paint, his
fingernails dirty. He’s on his second pack of Marlboro Red king size. He hopes the police won’t pass
by. Michael has been here all day. He will be here all day tomorrow and then, when he no longer needs
to add paint or lines or color, he will sign his name triumphantly in the bottom left corner of his latest
piece of street art.
TOP LEFT Michael inside Carrière Hennocque
mine. BOTTOM LEFT Passersby stop to watch
Michael paint in Paris’ 10th a­ rrondissement.
TOP RIGHT Spray paint cans in M
­ ichael’s
­apartment. PREVIOUS PAGE Michael sits inside a
tunnel built during the ocupation of France to
construct V2 rockets in secret.
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Night has fallen over Paris. The rain comes intermittently to blur the outlines of streetlights and
buildings. Michael glances at the blue and green street sign marking ‘Rue Rennequin.’ One hand
clutches a bucket of glue, the other a brush.There is a paper cut-out hidden underneath his jacket.
He smears the glue over a blank space on the stone wall. The ember of his lit cigarette glows
brightly as he inhales before he carefully removes his drawing and pastes it to the sticky wall. For
good measure he adds an extra layer of glue, his brush sparkling in the orange light cast by the
streetlamp above. It begins to rain again. Droplets streak Michael’s face as he throws a last glance
at his poster. He jumps into his car, off to decorate another lonely spot on a wall somewhere in
Paris.
TOP LEFT Michael lathers a wall
with glue in preparation for a poster.
BOTTOM LEFT Michael and his daughter in
his ­apartment in Franconville, a
suburb of Paris. PREVIOUS PAGE Michael
glances away from his painting of a
panda in Paris’ 10th arrondissement.
As Michael grew more experienced he also became more
interested in passing his own messages and statements
through his art form. He took inspiration from the
French writer Jean De La Fontaine, who wrote fables
about a
­ nimals in order to reference political and social
problems.
“I love the idea of painting animals but to really be
speaking about the human condition,” says Michael.
“This way when people are walking in the street and they
see my painting they don’t feel like the finger is being
pointed at them. So they are more open to the ­message,
more willing to listen.”
Michael’s most recent large-scale painting is in Paris’
10th arrondissement. It features an enormous panda
wounded by colorful spears and begs the question of its
observer: ‘would we kill a panda the same way we kill a
bull?’ Many of Michael’s works carry similar messages. He
makes art that focuses on hypocrisies and ­contradictions:
art that can help us break some of the habitual ways we
perceive the world and accept the unacceptable.
“There are so many problems with our human lifestyle
that concern us all, and yet so many people don’t care,”
he says. “There are plenty of people that will pass by my
paintings and not even notice. But there are also people
that do look and ask themselves ‘why did he do that?’ and
maybe then my paintings might have an impact on their
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actions in the future. Maybe something as simple as
throwing their trash into a bin instead of on the ground.”
Michael works along the whole spectrum of what is now
known as street art. Sometimes he makes ­large-scale
paintings and sometimes small posters or drawings. But
the risks are higher now. Michael has a six-month-old
daughter and a long-term girlfriend. He hopes to make
a career out of making his art. M
­ ichael sells some of his
drawings and paintings. But he doesn’t have a g
­ allery
that represents him or underwrites his art. M
­ ichael
hopes to find a gallery that isn’t only interested in money
but is interested in what he has to say.
“Street art is the biggest global artistic movement in
history,” says Michael. “But it’s hard to be a street artist
because most of the time you work for free.”
Michael is part of a new generation of artists that face
some of the same problems artists have been facing for
centuries: how to support themselves by doing what they
love. Despite the difficulties posed by being an artist who
practices a form considered illegal, and who now has a
family to support, Michael still relishes that sense of
­satisfaction that comes with a completed piece.
“The best feeling is when you pass one of your ­paintings
by accident and people are looking at what you’ve done
and talking about it,” says Michael. “Most of all I hope
that people will hear to what I am trying to tell them.”
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