ARTIST / Richie Velazquez

Posted by UN/DN LAQR on June 13, 2022

Richie Velazquez - East Los Angeles

Creative medium: OOF

What are some of the jobs you had before your career took off?

After high school I jumped into a temp agency that provided a lot of warehouse work. FedEx, Toys R Us and others, random warehouses usually always in the shipping department. I would load trucks for 8-12 hours a day and come home grime out stuff when I got home.

What job would you have if you weren’t an artist?

I would honestly probably still be loading up those trucks if my wife and frenzzz didn’t motivate me to go to school for something.

What creative advice would you give yourself 10 years ago?

Maybe to know when to Create More For Yourself Less For Them.

How have you seen your style evolve?

I see you go back and forth! Like when you create a style you can decide when to go super grimey or divine grimey. I can go back to 2012 grime or 2016 grime. Idk I can never really tell if I get better or worse, I don’t waste too much time thinking. I just create it and go.

What artist living or dead are you most inspired by?

I like the OGs like Warhol and Baquiat… John Baldessari, Chuck Close, Pablo Ferro, Drew Struzan, Wayne White, Mister Rogers etc etc & IRL Anta 52, ROES, NAOREV, XTOFUX, GORK, ABARS, AIRVOID, DAMMIT JANET… pretty much the whole BLOODYGUMS COLLECTIVE.

How do you want people to remember your work?

The Foo Who OOF’D Duh World…

What inspired you about these colors?

It reminded me of primary school! Back to the basics and stuff. It’s like our creative entrance into colors. The colors were magically already the colors I have been creating with at the moment.

What is Grime Art?

Grime Art Or DIGITAL DEATH AND GRIME is something that I created for fun outta boredom. I did end up going to a vocational college to get my AA in visual communication. I was very bad at following instructions and tutorials so I would just grime up photos during breaks and classes. I started picking out random pop images to re-grime. These were the tumblr times! I started to post all of them and was becoming aware of the hashtags so instead of flooding #art and worrying about being discovered I created #digitaldeathandgrime to start cataloging the grime. It was just the way I would express what I was seeing, liked or disliked without saying it. It’s has always been up to the viewer.

How does one decide what to grime, what inspires you?

It's usually the way the photo stands out or doesn’t stand out. Since I survive off it, it has always been my online resume or pitch deck. Lately I have realized that We Are TV Again… Like everyone is a channel and we all create commercials to sell ourselves. I have always been self consciously creating the looks and feel for my own OOF-IE Television network which has been “MÁS FUN TV.” I Grime To Keep up with the times.