Hey street art lovers! Do you know C215? No? Come on! You’re not street art lovers! C215 use stencil like a music instrument: he gives you vibes and feelings for free! We brought you a video of him in London : C215 hits London . As Fatcap is dedicated to street art and graffiti lovers 
here’s an interview of C215: enjoy!
Big up to Yafa for the help
FT: Where are you from? What’s your background?
C215: I am from Paris. I have always been drawing and I painted in the street with a spray bomb for the first time almost twenty years ago. It already was “vespas” of a real size and I still paint them today, but with stencils not on “free hand” anymore … I have 35 of them. I followed university studies in art history, until a PhD at the Sorbonne. Things only became serious little by little.
FT: What was the interest in art and what led you to create all those stencils?
C215: The stencil allows me to combine my passion for drawing and that of graffiti. It is so good to affix in a street the work of several days in a few minutes and without any necessary authorization…
FT: How would you define your work and what inspires you?
C215: I do stencil, realistic but stylized, that I create as a craftwork without a computer, but along with a picture. I start with a picture to end up with another, the one of my work painted outdoors, which is part of a framework while diverting it.
FT: You seem to love the facial expressions, and you use the power of it through your talent. Can you explain to us why you do have this “obsession” ?
C215: The faces are landscapes, and they provide a wide variety of expressions, marking identities, backgrounds, therefore many messages. I paint mostly tramps, refugees and street kids, people who really live the experience of the street and to whom the street art is almost never intended.
FT: What was your best and your worst creation?
C215: We all feel that the latter is always the best until the next that disgusts us from it
FT: If your style was a music band or a song? Which one would it be?
C215: I like the swing, Cajun folklore, ska, and old-fashioned things.
FT: I saw a video of you in London. You are doing your artwork as if it was legal. Is it the best way not to be arrested?
C215: The problem is not me but the law, so I do not feel guilty doing it. Maybe it is more natural then.
FT: Do you do drugs? Do you need something particular to be creative?
C215: Ahaha if only I was creative, I never have ideas, only obsessions…
FT: Do you feel the work you are doing is something that should be preserved or stayed transience?
C215: This is not my concern. I am just doing it.
FT: Do you dream in Stencils and colors?
C215: Sometimes, but in fact I can translate any scene I see in everyday life in my stencil style with just a glimpse.
FT: What did you do last week?
C215: I was in Poland, doing a workshop and some paintings in Warsaw.
FT: What was your most adventurous and dangerous graffiti-stencil artwork?
C215: Painting my self-portrait outside the national portrait gallery in London, a Friday afternoon before a huge passing crowd without any authorization…
FT: What kind of reaction do you want to evoke with your art?
C215: I just want them to get an emotion. And make them sense again the feeling of freedom.
FT: What are your favorite spots?
C215: Rusty or all over tagged doors
FT: Can you talk about your work with dan23?
C215: He’s just one of my best friends and a big influence for me. It is a good emulation to have among one’s friends such a nice and talented artist.
FT: Describe a typical day for C215:
C215: I am a kind of working robot. I feel so happy that I can do my stuff everyday and I don’t need anything else.
FT: How do you choose your images and where they are placed in the street?
C215: Everything is contextualized and I prepare new stencils every day, so there are new street stencils done every week, each one prepared while thinking about the next trip.
FT: What do you think about hype?
C215: I don’t know what to think about it. I do not go out so much of my flat and studio if not for going out painting…
FT: Name an artist whose work you respect and admire.
C215: Ernest Pignon Ernest
FT: How would you describe street art and what makes it different from graffiti or would you say it all falls under the same umbrella of shit? Don’t you think it’s totally different?
C215: Graffiti is mainly marking his name with style in the city while street art is more aiming at transforming contextual situations in a defined architecture.
FT: How do you feel about the commercialization of street art in recent years?
C215: It could be good but if artists continue to do it in the streets. Many are now so busy with galleries that they forget the streets…
FT: What’s coming up in the next few month? Projects, shows, collab?
C215: Exactly. A lot of things. Too many certainly. I would love to stay somewhere quiet and hidden and cut new stuff without an Internet upload during months and then suddenly show everything
FT: What’s your real goal?
C215: Basically just being free of painting until I die. Surely also make my 5 years old daughter Nina proud of her father, and teach her what I know if she’s interested.
FT: Any words of wisdom?
C215: Stop consuming.
If you want more C215 artwork, check his flickr! C215 !
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