Montreal-based artist MONK-E says he could communicate with his mother through drawings before he could talk.
“I would say that visual art is my first language, then French and then English.”
He started his career as a graffiti artist in nearby Drummondville at just 14, using both public and private property as his canvas. He’s now a celebrated muralist in Montreal, with dozens of walls around the city displaying his work, approved by the owners.
But before shop owners and festival organizers trusted him to paint on their walls, he was a graffiti vandal.
Rampant graffiti and publicly-funded murals have been defining features of Montreal’s cityscape for decades. Successive city governments have tried to discourage the illegal graffiti by embracing the publicly-funded murals. But that hasn’t stopped the vandalism — which is sometimes even plastered over the murals themselves.
If private property has been vandalized with spray paint in Montreal, the owner can call the city, who will remove it at the public’s expense. But even that program has been unsuccessful in eradicating vandalism, says Alan DeSousa, Borough mayor of Saint-Laurent.
“Sometimes I get the feeling that the faster they put [graffiti] up, the faster we remove it, the faster they put it up, the faster we remove it. It’s a game of cat and mouse,” he said.
Ephemeral art
MONK-E says he fell in love with graffiti after watching a documentary about a Buddhist monk. The monk was making a mandala, arranging coloured sand into elaborate geometric patterns, before the creation was ultimately swept into a jar.
Graffiti artists need to have that same level of detachment from their art, he says. It won’t last forever.
“You have to choose graffiti understanding it’s an ephemeral art form, where value is derived from the experience of making it.”
He sees no problem with Montreal cleaning up graffiti, provided the cleaning is approved by the property owner. He has relationships with several property owners around the city, and every few years he paints a new mural on their walls.
MONK-E says vandalism was never a big part of his work. But when he does spray paint illegally, he says he is guided by ethical considerations. His rule of thumb is to always add to, not take away from, the beauty of the space.
“It’s highly subjective, but for me, a train that was only filled with rust is getting an upgrade when some colourful calligraphy gets painted on it,” he said.
One day, MONK-E learned train workers were frustrated by vandals painting over barcodes on the train cars, which are used to keep track of inventory, he says. From that point on, he made sure to leave the barcodes alone.
“That is often the only thing that frustrated the train workers. All the train workers I met love to see colourful art on their train,” he said.
Eventually that train leaves the station, sending his artwork across the country or into the United States, never to be laid eyes on by him again.
Clean and don’t talk about it
Sterling Downey spent decades as a graffiti artist and vandal before being elected to Montreal’s city council in 2013. He says the bottom line is: If you do something against the law, you have to accept the consequences.
In 1996, Downey and four colleagues were arrested on the Montreal train tracks after police found spray paint in their vehicle.
“We had our paint on us because we have a mural company registered in the province of Quebec. Just like a mechanic, we had our tools on us. But they didn’t catch us vandalizing anything,” Downey said.
They were then sued in civil court by VIA Rail for $250,000, who claimed they were responsible for the painted vandalism on all nearby rail cars.
They ended up settling out of court for $3,000. Were they actually spraypainting that night? Who knows? he says.
Over the course of his career, Downey says he’s had dozens of run-ins with the law, and has spent the night in jail three times.
But he’s never been successfully prosecuted for vandalism because there wasn’t any evidence. Just having spray paint and being near the scene isn’t enough to convict someone of the offence, he says.
“Unless you admit that you did it, they can’t prove it.”
Even before Downey was elected to Montreal’s city council, he was consulting for the city on its graffiti policy. He says the approach now is simple: clean it up; don’t talk about it.
“I have around a thousand newspapers in my house, archived from when my stuff made the paper. When they write ‘Vandal destroys subway station,’ well, you’ve just put me on the front page. It’s a trophy.”
Murals instead
In the downtown borough of Ville-Marie, the city spends about $500,000 a year cleaning about 30,000 square metres of paint, the city said in a statement.
Downey says just like with the disposal of garbage, Montreal tries to encourage people to adopt better habits with graffiti.
“We encourage the creation of murals instead. It’s a form of expression, and we recognize its value and importance,” he said.
Since 2016, the city has supported the creation of about 100 murals, it said in a statement.
“When we have new murals going up, there’s an enormously positive response. People are really proud of it. But what’s more troublesome is the tags. Those we remove,” says Maja Vodanovic, Borough mayor of Lachine.
Once a year in Lachine, the city goes on a removal blitz. Addresses are pre-authorized by council, and the graffiti is sprayed off. It costs about $15,000 to $20,000 a year, she says.
“We really try to beautify the city through art. In Lachine, we put even more money in than the city gives,” Vodanovic said.
But the city’s love isn’t for art. Their hatred is for vandalism, MONK-E says.
“The scene has become a big circus of opportunism and gentrification.”
By that he means marketing companies — instead of artists themselves — are awarded contracts to create murals. The companies often pick artists from outside the city, he says.
“Seventy to 80 per cent of the [money] goes to the marketing agency, and the art is less risky because it’s controlled by a brand, instead of being more subversive and authentic.”
He now sees a war happening in Montreal between graffiti artists and marketers. A mural will be painted over vandalism graffiti. Then in revenge, the mural will be vandalized, which will then be painted over again for a fresh canvas.
That’s just part of the game when you’re painting on the street, Downey says.
“If you want to be an artist and you want your work to be preserved and protected, then make sure it stays in a gallery or a museum.”
