Today we are happy to feature ChrisRWK and Veng from the Robots Will Kill collective and their new mural at the Welling Court Mural Project. ChrisRWK and Veng have been collaborating for a long time as a duo. We were fortunate to catch up with them ===>
How did you meet each other and what made you start working together?
Veng: “We met about 12 or so years back, through mutual friends. We didn’t really paint together until around 2007 or so. We realized we had a lotof common interests and felt we could work off each other’s work.”
ChrisRWK: “We started talking about skateboarding and other common interests and next thing you know we’ve been painting together for around 10 years!”
What do you bring to the collab and what does your partner bring?
Veng: “I bring a more rendered look to my paintings whereas Chris keeps it more focused on an outline. I think the softness of my work contrasts his solid work nicely.”
ChrisRWK: “I bring a more illustrative and whimsical feel to the walls; imagery that’s recognizable and hopefully inviting. Veng creates these detailed people, animals, structures that suck in viewers and make them ask questions like how or why? With my work I try to become the viewer whereas Veng keeps their attention. It makes one visually jump back and forth between our styles.”
How do you feel your work is affected when you collab?
Veng: “I think it brings out nothing but goodness and a new approach I might otherwise have missed.”
ChrisRWK: “I feel it lifts my work up to a higher standard. I’ve always respected Veng’s work so when we paint together I know to go all out. I also feel his softer blends, lights and shadows make my style pop more because of my bold lines and graphical color style.”
What is this particular mural about?
Veng: “It’s a mix of each thing we have done on walls.”
ChrisRWK: “This event is one of our favorites, so we wanted to include a personal feel and painted our signature styles: my robots and typeface and Veng’s soft realistic portrait with color brick style. Then I added our portraits to make it more personal. Almost a tongue in cheek statement of “yes this is what you know us for and here we are”, and yeah we’re “not done yet, not by far.””
