We all love a little anthropomorphism. We get a kick out of making inanimate objects come to life, imbuing them with the most fleeting whiff of humanity. It brings us comfort in a cold technological world, unleashing both our inner child and our inner Dr Frankenstein, both of them smiling with glee.
Anthropomorphism, or the technique of giving human characteristics to objects, can be as simple as popping a pair of eyes on a post box. Young Perth street artist Cheeks knows this. In fact, she’s one of its greatest exponents, executing crazy paste-up eyes and gnarled teeth wherever she can.
But that isn’t the extent of her ability, not by half. As part of the Mt Lawley Kids crew (which includes Monster and Psyche among others), Cheeks has an arts pedigree that will undoubtedly grow with time. Just taking a peek inside her journal reveals a style that is incredibly lysergic, three parts sketchy (in the twitchy sense) and one part possibly unsettled, it delivers imagery from the edge, endearing yet possibly unhinged.
As co-director of Youth Tree and co-editor of youth arts zine untitled(YOUTH), Cheeks is on her way to being a major player. Yet to explore the full dynamics of aerosol, her paste-ups and illustrations belie a skill and fluid line. That and she loves sticking eyes on post boxes… all of which brings the streets more to life.
How would you describe your work? Characters…with the secret agenda of world domination by crawling onto all sorts of surfaces!
You’ve mainly done paste-ups at current – why haven’t you tackled aerosol? Good question. Honestly? I just haven’t gotten round to it. I’ve only been doing this for 6-7 months. I’ve always been drawing since i was a youngin’ but only just started to translate it to street art. But yeah it’s definitely in the immediate future plans to give aerosol a tackle – should be fun.
Who inspires you (either artist or street artist)? I have so many inspirations it’ll be too many to say but to list the main artists/street artists that inspire me: Greg Simkins, Sean Morris, Stormie Mills, Swoon, Numskull, Mark Ryden, Ghostpatrol, Miso and Neckface. Besides these guys all my mates and their creativity inspire me to no end and generally any other person doing what they do, just going for it for the sake of doing it and loving what they do at the same time!
How do you see the street art scene here in Perth? (We’ve) got some good artists here in little ol’ Perth!
What do you hope to achieve with your street art? World peace? Hah, nah. I hope to achieve a lot of things all at once – a bit of fun, maybe a couple of laughs, exposure, quenching of the never-ending art thirst and to hopefully instil a bit of thought and wonder. Mostly though for pure enjoyment for myself and maybe the viewers… and heck, if world peace gets achieved too then hell yeah why not!
www.heysweetcheeks.blogspot.com/
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
