In issue 20 we had the pleasure to talk to Englishman but Paris-based artist and illustrator
Ermsy. He studied graphic design at university and has been competetively drawing since he was only 8 years old. Like most artists he experimented a lot before creating his own style, but one thing has always stood out and that is the love for popular cartoon characters. Instead of being gentle with them, he smacks them up, turnes them inside out and applies a triple layer of psychedelic sauce.
Oozing cakes, sweaty balls and turds with marbles in them. No, we’re not talking about your recent interrail trip or about that weird niche corner of the internet you sometimes visit, it’s Ozon and he has a healthy appetite for trains... Check out issue 20 for more dirt.
Street art festival
POW! WOW! Rotterdam 2019 was a transformative experience, in both a figurative and literal sense of the word. In issue 20 a story by
Jaap van der Doelen about the Afrikaanderwijk, art and eggs. Photo:
Rosa Quist
A big kid bursting with creativity or an ideas factory on overdrive? Both are actually true. But neither captures the vastness of the creative universe of Frank de Ruwe, also known as
Frankey. He studied industrial design at the TU Delft and currently lives and works in Amsterdam. Where, if you look closely, you can discover his works in an unexpected places throughout the city. Remember to keep an eye out, you won’t regret it, or just check out the interview in issue 20.
When Cultuur Gent sent us an invite to come over and check out the third edition of the
Sorry Not Sorry festival, I quickly packed my bag and headed for Belgium to the city that is packed with awesome murals. A short report in issue 20 :)
Making this issue has seen some serious delay. Holidays, work, painting and content mysteriously disappearing were to blame. Not to mention the fact that every editor here has a full time job to attend to. Or did you think we lived like Hugh Hefner in a big SAM Mansion? Would be nice though, having a few trains in the backyard (image above), loads of walls to paint, free spray can dispensers, a mini ramp and a 24 hour pool side bar... Yeah, the magazine business is the best way to get rich. But, the fact that you’re reading this, means issue 19 is alive! It’s a good old fashioned mixed bag this time; from street bombers to studio animation to typography and anything in between. It’s an issue you can have laying around on any high brow coffee table showing your excellent taste in art.
At the early age of eleven
Pref found the Spraycan Art at a London flea market. That book gave him an insight in the tags and pieces he’d been seeing from the bus and train window on his journey to school. Already into skateboarding, skateboard graphics and Hip Hop music, painting graffiti was a natural progression and became his passion ever since. Read more in issue 19.
Roaming the streets with a large shopping bag in hand,
Perishable Rush collects the trash from human manifestations. He loves thick layers of weathered posters that he peels off layer by layer, in much the same manner as he does in his work relating to human behaviour and the spirit of the times from which it originated. All about this guy in issue 19.
Walking the streets of Rotterdam you’re bound to run into a piece by Pose. He’s like that classic nineties bomber that hits the city with tags, throw-ups and pieces and never seems to run out of funkiness or cans. Never predictable and always looking for good spots to paint, Pose is gradually becoming a house hold name in the streets. Check issue 19.
It all started late 2017 when the guys of Dutch Graffiti Library saw a post on Instagram showing a New York City subway painted in the mid eighties by Kase2 TFP and next to it a piece that said “Disz” and a big Vaughn Bodé lizard. In the comments beneath this picture someone wrote: “Disz was a dude visiting from Europe that Kase brought to the 1 tunnel. We remembered the name Disz as mentioned in the preface of Spraycan Art published by Henry Chalfant and James Prigoff in 1987.” Read all about it in issue 19 :)
Huh, 010, don't you mean issue 19? Well, this is a bit of a special issue focussing only on Rotterdam, nicknamed 010 for the area code. It's an issue powered by
Rotterdam Make it Happen and made by the regular SAM staff with a bit of help from
MJay. This issue features just a small selection of all the good stuff that is being made in this city so we made a mix of the old, the new, the fine art and the bombers, a bit of history and a bit of the future. But if you want to catch 'em all, just visit Rotterdam, our hometown ;)
Whether he’s creating art installations out of plastic waste on the beaches of Mexico, or ‘vandalizing’ advertisements in the Rotterdam streets, you’ll notice what he’s doing.
Naamlooozz: “The street inspires me. I’m just a guy from the streets.”
Omnipresent on the streets of Rotterdam since early 2001, Lastplak is a ten person collective that has a big part in paving the way street art is being embraced in Rotterdam today. They’ve almost always worked without commissions, permits or funds and never been held back by rain, snow, security guards or heights. Their motto is ‘niet lullen maar sauzen’ (less talk, more painting), a variation of a classic Rotterdam phrase, but for this issue they granted us an interview for the Rotterdam Special SAM 010.
Yes, we did it! As of now, there are no more magazines in stock. So hang on to your old issues, you're now one the happy few to own a SAM. Maybe you can sell yours for thousands of euro's in a few years as a rare collectors item! Or just keep them laying around your house to show how sophisticated you are ;) But don't fear, we are working on a new issue that should come out this summer, so just in case you were wondering; no, we're not dead. For now, keep painting and as always; feel free to send in good stuff.
Getting this guy to do an interview has been without a doubt the hardest thing in the whole history of this mag. Even though he’s been on our wish list since day one, we never had any luck, until now! Meet
Flying Förtress; the man who’s Always Busy, mr. Merch, general of the Teddy Troops, JBCB member, finder of unlocked doors and painter of everything. Issue 20, get it while it lasts!
Few street artists have as recognizable a style as
Nychos. Looking at a piece by the Austrian spray can virtuoso is like putting on X-ray goggles – his paintings of humans and animals are dissected into layers revealing bone, muscle and veins. Although morbid, Nychos keeps things light and humorous, having dissected icons such as The Little Mermaid, Darth Vader, Mickey Mouse, Ronald McDonald and Batman in famous murals all over the world. We caught up with Nychos – who was featured in the very first issue of SAM – while he was in San Francisco for his latest gallery show, Endless Layers till Consciousness. An item by
Sole Moller in issue 20.
Pea headed guys painting trains and having fun with pea headed girls, caught in a classic and clean black and white setting. Utrecht based Erwtje draws the aesthetics of illegal graffiti and the romance of porn. Check it out in issue 20!
For issue 20 we interviewed
Thijs Lansbergen, a Rotterdam based illustrator who makes illustrations for magazines, designs posters, banners, beer labels, infographics and what not. Loves to paint murals and make screenprints, likes vikings, monsters and tropical islands.
Our main man Danny Rumbl was invited to paint at
Meeting of Styles Manila and wrote a short report on the event for issue 20.
Hell yeah, this baby is finally in store and ready to be shipped! A while back, the guys at
Walls&Skin asked if we could do a special issue about the relation between graffiti and tattoos, because apparently a lot of writers do tattoos and a lot of tattoo artists paint. Seems legit, so we went to work :) Proud to feature artists like Lugo, Muretz, Iñaki, Peter van der Helm, Feleon, Que, Phen, Xav, Leon Ka, Cortisol Kid, Enigma, Nacho Eterno, Michiel van der Born, Floes and Eric Moreno. So, wheater you're inked or not, get it while it's hot!
Mossy Giant is an Amsterdam based illustrator & graphic designer who practices his craft in a small studio close to the center of the city. Mossy Giant takes tremendous pride in his craft, always creating by hand, whilst also flirting with the digital realm - on a continuous journey to master his tools. Check out the cool cover he made for SAM issue 19 ^_^
When stencil artist
Jaune is in your city, a tribe of tiny garbagemen follows wherever he’s been. They’re impossible to pass without smiling, but there are dark truths behind their funny facades.
Mals crafts high quality eye-catching images and film. Their work is often tangible -preferably handmade- and has a conceptual approach. Combined with a playful attitude, it results in a strong visual language. The studio is founded by Silas Nout and Martin van der Molen.
Ever had a train tell you to fuck off? Well, if you’re waiting for your connection on a Hamburg station, that just might happen...
Fresh for issue 19: meet Snob, a young writer from central Italy. Besides painting walls, he draws detailed worlds in black and white where graffiti plays a main role.
POW! WOW! Festival is the best known street art festival in the world. It started in the outskirts of Hawaii, transforming a grey suburb into a beloved open air gallery. After several successful editions on the island of O‘ahu, the festival spread to locations in Los Angeles, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan. Rotterdam became the proud host of its first European edition! The first edition of
POW! WOW! Rotterdam was a huge success! During the weekend of September 15 and 16 2018, the M4H area was in the hold of the best (inter)national street artists. The work of more than 70 artists could be admired in the form of murals, canvas, installations and vans. Aside from the art, a fantastic and diverse festival audience also enjoyed sports competitions and musical acts on the main stage.
Never meet your heroes, the saying goes. But several Rotterdam street artists didn’t just meet the man whose comics they grew up with, they eventually worked with Robert van der Kroft as well. Thankfully, he’s every bit as cool and fun as his comic book creations are. Those characters unfortunately remain in legal limbo and no longer appear in books or magazines, but in the past years, have surprisingly been resurrected on the city’s walls. Glad to have him in the Rotterdam Special SAM 010.
Brewing a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen of his Rotterdam home,
I AM EELCO is wearing a shirt bearing the logo of Rudafest Bogota, the Colombian street art festival he was a guest at only weeks before. His many travels don’t exactly make it easy to pin him down for a conversation, but it isn’t hard to see why he’s so in-demand all over the world: his realm of remarkably rendered night animals are unlike anything else. This Rotterdam classic is also in the Rotterdam Special SAM 010.
Yes! It took some time, but we're back on track and ready to go, starting with the delayed issue 21. It's an 88 pages beast filled with good stuff and interesting reads and it's available here soon. Cheers! 
Allright, happy to say issue 20 is available as of right now! It's 8 pages bigger then normal but we could have easily filled 300 pages, there's just so much good stuff being made. Get it while it's hot, this one is a classic soon to be sold out issue. 
In issue 20 we had the pleasure to talk to Englishman but Paris-based artist and illustrator Ermsy. He studied graphic design at university and has been competetively drawing since he was only 8 years old. Like most artists he experimented a lot before creating his own style, but one thing has always stood out and that is the love for popular cartoon characters. Instead of being gentle with them, he smacks them up, turnes them inside out and applies a triple layer of psychedelic sauce. 
Oozing cakes, sweaty balls and turds with marbles in them. No, we’re not talking about your recent interrail trip or about that weird niche corner of the internet you sometimes visit, it’s Ozon and he has a healthy appetite for trains... Check out issue 20 for more dirt. 
Street art festival POW! WOW! Rotterdam 2019 was a transformative experience, in both a figurative and literal sense of the word. In issue 20 a story by Jaap van der Doelen about the Afrikaanderwijk, art and eggs. Photo: Rosa Quist 
A big kid bursting with creativity or an ideas factory on overdrive? Both are actually true. But neither captures the vastness of the creative universe of Frank de Ruwe, also known as Frankey. He studied industrial design at the TU Delft and currently lives and works in Amsterdam. Where, if you look closely, you can discover his works in an unexpected places throughout the city. Remember to keep an eye out, you won’t regret it, or just check out the interview in issue 20. 
When Cultuur Gent sent us an invite to come over and check out the third edition of the Sorry Not Sorry festival, I quickly packed my bag and headed for Belgium to the city that is packed with awesome murals. A short report in issue 20 :) 
Making this issue has seen some serious delay. Holidays, work, painting and content mysteriously disappearing were to blame. Not to mention the fact that every editor here has a full time job to attend to. Or did you think we lived like Hugh Hefner in a big SAM Mansion? Would be nice though, having a few trains in the backyard (image above), loads of walls to paint, free spray can dispensers, a mini ramp and a 24 hour pool side bar... Yeah, the magazine business is the best way to get rich. But, the fact that you’re reading this, means issue 19 is alive! It’s a good old fashioned mixed bag this time; from street bombers to studio animation to typography and anything in between. It’s an issue you can have laying around on any high brow coffee table showing your excellent taste in art. 
Roaming the streets with a large shopping bag in hand, Perishable Rush collects the trash from human manifestations. He loves thick layers of weathered posters that he peels off layer by layer, in much the same manner as he does in his work relating to human behaviour and the spirit of the times from which it originated. All about this guy in issue 19. 
Walking the streets of Rotterdam you’re bound to run into a piece by Pose. He’s like that classic nineties bomber that hits the city with tags, throw-ups and pieces and never seems to run out of funkiness or cans. Never predictable and always looking for good spots to paint, Pose is gradually becoming a house hold name in the streets. Check issue 19. 
It all started late 2017 when the guys of Dutch Graffiti Library saw a post on Instagram showing a New York City subway painted in the mid eighties by Kase2 TFP and next to it a piece that said “Disz” and a big Vaughn Bodé lizard. In the comments beneath this picture someone wrote: “Disz was a dude visiting from Europe that Kase brought to the 1 tunnel. We remembered the name Disz as mentioned in the preface of Spraycan Art published by Henry Chalfant and James Prigoff in 1987.” Read all about it in issue 19 :) 
Huh, 010, don't you mean issue 19? Well, this is a bit of a special issue focussing only on Rotterdam, nicknamed 010 for the area code. It's an issue powered by Rotterdam Make it Happen and made by the regular SAM staff with a bit of help from MJay. This issue features just a small selection of all the good stuff that is being made in this city so we made a mix of the old, the new, the fine art and the bombers, a bit of history and a bit of the future. But if you want to catch 'em all, just visit Rotterdam, our hometown ;) 
Whether he’s creating art installations out of plastic waste on the beaches of Mexico, or ‘vandalizing’ advertisements in the Rotterdam streets, you’ll notice what he’s doing. Naamlooozz: “The street inspires me. I’m just a guy from the streets.” 
Omnipresent on the streets of Rotterdam since early 2001, Lastplak is a ten person collective that has a big part in paving the way street art is being embraced in Rotterdam today. They’ve almost always worked without commissions, permits or funds and never been held back by rain, snow, security guards or heights. Their motto is ‘niet lullen maar sauzen’ (less talk, more painting), a variation of a classic Rotterdam phrase, but for this issue they granted us an interview for the Rotterdam Special SAM 010. 
Getting this guy to do an interview has been without a doubt the hardest thing in the whole history of this mag. Even though he’s been on our wish list since day one, we never had any luck, until now! Meet Flying Förtress; the man who’s Always Busy, mr. Merch, general of the Teddy Troops, JBCB member, finder of unlocked doors and painter of everything. Issue 20, get it while it lasts! 
Few street artists have as recognizable a style as Nychos. Looking at a piece by the Austrian spray can virtuoso is like putting on X-ray goggles – his paintings of humans and animals are dissected into layers revealing bone, muscle and veins. Although morbid, Nychos keeps things light and humorous, having dissected icons such as The Little Mermaid, Darth Vader, Mickey Mouse, Ronald McDonald and Batman in famous murals all over the world. We caught up with Nychos – who was featured in the very first issue of SAM – while he was in San Francisco for his latest gallery show, Endless Layers till Consciousness. An item by Sole Moller in issue 20. 
Pea headed guys painting trains and having fun with pea headed girls, caught in a classic and clean black and white setting. Utrecht based Erwtje draws the aesthetics of illegal graffiti and the romance of porn. Check it out in issue 20! 
For issue 20 we interviewed Thijs Lansbergen, a Rotterdam based illustrator who makes illustrations for magazines, designs posters, banners, beer labels, infographics and what not. Loves to paint murals and make screenprints, likes vikings, monsters and tropical islands. 
Our main man Danny Rumbl was invited to paint at Meeting of Styles Manila and wrote a short report on the event for issue 20. 
Hell yeah, this baby is finally in store and ready to be shipped! A while back, the guys at Walls&Skin asked if we could do a special issue about the relation between graffiti and tattoos, because apparently a lot of writers do tattoos and a lot of tattoo artists paint. Seems legit, so we went to work :) Proud to feature artists like Lugo, Muretz, Iñaki, Peter van der Helm, Feleon, Que, Phen, Xav, Leon Ka, Cortisol Kid, Enigma, Nacho Eterno, Michiel van der Born, Floes and Eric Moreno. So, wheater you're inked or not, get it while it's hot! 
Mossy Giant is an Amsterdam based illustrator & graphic designer who practices his craft in a small studio close to the center of the city. Mossy Giant takes tremendous pride in his craft, always creating by hand, whilst also flirting with the digital realm - on a continuous journey to master his tools. Check out the cool cover he made for SAM issue 19 ^_^ 
When stencil artist Jaune is in your city, a tribe of tiny garbagemen follows wherever he’s been. They’re impossible to pass without smiling, but there are dark truths behind their funny facades. 
Mals crafts high quality eye-catching images and film. Their work is often tangible -preferably handmade- and has a conceptual approach. Combined with a playful attitude, it results in a strong visual language. The studio is founded by Silas Nout and Martin van der Molen. 
Ever had a train tell you to fuck off? Well, if you’re waiting for your connection on a Hamburg station, that just might happen... 
Fresh for issue 19: meet Snob, a young writer from central Italy. Besides painting walls, he draws detailed worlds in black and white where graffiti plays a main role. 
POW! WOW! Festival is the best known street art festival in the world. It started in the outskirts of Hawaii, transforming a grey suburb into a beloved open air gallery. After several successful editions on the island of O‘ahu, the festival spread to locations in Los Angeles, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan. Rotterdam became the proud host of its first European edition! The first edition of POW! WOW! Rotterdam was a huge success! During the weekend of September 15 and 16 2018, the M4H area was in the hold of the best (inter)national street artists. The work of more than 70 artists could be admired in the form of murals, canvas, installations and vans. Aside from the art, a fantastic and diverse festival audience also enjoyed sports competitions and musical acts on the main stage. 
Never meet your heroes, the saying goes. But several Rotterdam street artists didn’t just meet the man whose comics they grew up with, they eventually worked with Robert van der Kroft as well. Thankfully, he’s every bit as cool and fun as his comic book creations are. Those characters unfortunately remain in legal limbo and no longer appear in books or magazines, but in the past years, have surprisingly been resurrected on the city’s walls. Glad to have him in the Rotterdam Special SAM 010. 
Brewing a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen of his Rotterdam home, I AM EELCO is wearing a shirt bearing the logo of Rudafest Bogota, the Colombian street art festival he was a guest at only weeks before. His many travels don’t exactly make it easy to pin him down for a conversation, but it isn’t hard to see why he’s so in-demand all over the world: his realm of remarkably rendered night animals are unlike anything else. This Rotterdam classic is also in the Rotterdam Special SAM 010.