Putos has been a long-standing member of the Melbourne graf community as well as an active member of ACM (Art Crush Mob) who lives and breathes graf every second of the day. He can be found all throughout the suburbs of Melbourne, and we reckon it would be safe to say you can’t walk a full block without catching a piece of his work.

His work is incredibly eye-catching, combining traditional graffiti techniques with popping shape and colour, creating a style that is strikingly unique and definitely something he can call his own.  Putos is an expert with blends and tones, having the ability to create electric chaos that almost pops off the wall. His imagination helps create weird and wonderful compositions and imagery, that makes viewers to not always fully understand but most definitely appreciate.  Alright, enough small talk- let’s get chatting…

JUDDY – Hey Putos, how’s it going?

PUTOS – Good Good.

JUDDY – How’s your leg healing up? It doesn’t seem to be holding you back too much?

PUTOS – It did for four months… I couldn’t stand or walk while it was healing ‘n so my graf was put on hold during that time… So I’m just playing catch up now.

JUDDY – You’ve been in and out of the studio a fair bit lately, you seem busy now which is good! Are you a typically a night owl or an early bird?

PUTOS – Night owl for sure… I’ve always been able to concentrate more during the night.

JUDDY – What’s your drink of choice?

PUTOS – Beer, but anything alcoholic is fine with me.

JUDDY – I hear that. Do you prefer painting indoors or outdoors?

PUTOS – Outdoors- I hate wearing masks so painting indoors is not good at all for me.

JUDDY – How long have you been working with Juddy Roller?

PUTOS – I’ve been working out of Juddy for a while now, like maybe five years now? It’s a nice space with nicer people so you can’t go wrong.

JUDDY – Out of curiosity, I googled ‘putos’ and it literally translates to ‘fucking’ in Spanish. How did this name come about? Just putos-ing around or?

PUTOS – It’s just a silly name that stuck. I was writing other names before that but it overlapped with other writers so I just figured that no one will use a foreign swear word like that… When I lived in LA for a year there were a lot more people that speak Spanish there so I copped a bit of shit tho 🙂

JUDDY – Haha interesting. How did you get into your creative side of life? And how long have you been graff’ing for?

PUTOS – I’ve been tagging and stuff for a while, but took painting seriously in 2005? Or something? I’m not good with dates.

JUDDY – You seem to definitely be pretty happy sticking to the cans? Do you work with many other mediums or is aerosol the one for you?

PUTOS – Yea I’ve been focusing on cans for a long time but have also been working with pencil and ink for as long as I can remember… I’ve been dabbling with the paintbrush a bit but compared to cans it’s soooo slow I get bored of it. But I am in the process of trying to change that, I need to paint faster with a brush and be more patient with it.

JUDDY – Do you have any formal art degree?

PUTOS – Nope, but have been drawing all my life.

JUDDY – The school of life… Your work is quite illustrative and bold, is this something you just developed or has it been influenced by something?

PUTOS – I’ve always thought graf should be bold and eye-catching, so it stems from that idea I guess… I also grew up watching manga and anime, so I think the illustrative element comes from that.

JUDDY – Ahh I can totally see that now.  What message do you want to get across with your work?

PUTOS – No message, I just wanna paint cool shit.

JUDDY – What’s the weirdest commision you’ve ever had?

PUTOS – I’ve had to do some stupid commissions here and there over the years to make ends meet, unfortunately… I find when people want just shit stuff and tags on their walls when I am more than happy to give them something better, that’s a bit weird.

JUDDY – Do you have any secret/other talents/hobbies that we should know about?

PUTOS – Ha. Nah.

JUDDY – Keeping your secrets close hey.  What are your creative plans for the future?

PUTOS – If I can keep painting what I wanna paint and live off that, I’m a happy man. Just wanna keep pushing myself in what I’m interested in and contribute to the graf scene.

JUDDY – Good man.  Alright, last question, what would be your dream project to work on?

PUTOS – An oversized ten story graf piece would be sick.

JUDDY – Thanks for hanging around Putos, It’s been a pleasure.

For those interested in finding out more about Putos, you can find him on Instagram here.