Jimi Love is a multimedia artist who first cut his teeth in the art of stencilling in and around London’s infamous Camden Market. relocating to Brighton in the early 2000s he began scaling up to mural size stencils and also learned the art of silk screen printing to begin creating his own poster art, stickers and t-shirts.
Heavily influenced by late 80s & early 90s skateboard graphics, with it’s mix of rebellious, mischievous and psychedelic imagery, the work he creates is an extension of those principles with an added emphasis of something he calls Retina Burn. A type of image with thick black lines that within only half a second of viewing appears on the inside of your eyelids when you blink.
A further significant inspiration came from what he saw while attending the opening night exhibition at Outside Institute (now Stolen Space), London’s first contemporary art gallery to focus on street art, owned and curated by artist D*Face. Where amidst other notable greats he was introduced to SEEN (aka the godfather of graffiti) and Shepard Fairey (OBEY).
“It was suddenly as if everything made sense. The art I had been creating for years in quiet, far removed from everything and everyone, it suddenly had a place in the world. And it was all happening only a 40 minute train ride away from home. To say it blew my mind would be the understatement of the century. It changed my life. I’ve never looked back. Anything and everything is possible.”
Now spreading his time equally between the U.K. and Malta, Jimi Love has found himself in fine company with infamous Maltese pop artist Miloman where the two frequently collaborate on projects together. “I’m a big fan of Miloman. We both share the same passion for taking what we see in the Great Outdoors and putting it on a canvas so people can have it in their Great Indoors.”
