Young peoples search for their identity in subcultures is another reoccurring theme in Ash’s works. This is seen in the mural ”Punks Are Not Dead”, created for the exhibition Backjumps 3, Kunstraum Bethanien, Berlin, 2007. In this mural Ash reflects on punks as something from a possibly bygone era, and at the same time the work deals with young peoples eternal search for an identity.


Here we sense Ash’s past as one of the pioneers on the European graffiti scene. When he was 13 years old he was fascinated by the play with identities and the energy, which defines graffiti. Even if his technique reveals his past as a writer, the intention behind his work is something completely different now. He says that graffiti is often about repeating oneself, but these days he is more concerned with developing as an artist. With his raw stencil style and his use of figures that look like silhouettes, which he adapts to different surfaces such as walls, paper and glass, Ash has developed a new signature within which he constantly renews himself.

Miriam Nielsen