JonOne: graffiti's thinking man

JonOne enters the rooftop restaurant of Shoreditch's Curtain Hotel covered in paint splattered clothes. Two of his fingers are tipped in pastel blue acrylic, while splodges of colour appear to have been fired at him machine-gun style, coating his tee-shirt, army trousers and Stan Smiths in a rainbow of emulsified shots. It is not a contrived artist's get-up - the graffiti pro has been painting a giant 6-metre high Hennessy bottle on the green of nearby Boxpark – a public art project that celebrates his new limited edition bottle for the cognac brand, styled in his mad abstract/typographic style. JonOne, 54, also known as Jon156, is no stranger to high profile collaborations. He's custom painted a jet liner for Air France, created a limited series of Perrier bottles, Lacoste polo shirts and a special run of LG portable speakers. He's even customised former football hero Eric Cantona's convertible Rolls Royce Corniche, which now sits in pride of place in the lobby of Paris' arty Molitor Hotel. In 2015, the French government commissioned him to reinterpret Delacroix's famous Liberty Leading the People painting – a symbol of freedom and equality commemorating the July Revolution of 1830. His large scale abstract work, which depicts a stencilled Marianne in a freny of colourful blotches and blue tags, hangs at the French National Assembly in Paris.

Suffice to say that the boy from the ghetto did good. But JonOne isn't about to forget his roots – he grew up on the streets and spent most of his twenties living hand to mouth; always happy but as he puts it "bum broke". His story begins in Harlem where he was born and raised. "I was never a victim of my environment but yeah, I could have easily ended up in jail or into drugs or homeless. The streets are hard and I was lucky to make it out," says the artist who in breakfasting on a plate of pineapple. He's nabbed a banana too for later. "I'm always hungry", he laughs. "Hungry for everything. I've always been that way. Hustling and making 50 cents into a dollar."

At the age of 17, he founded the graffiti collective, 156 All Starz – a crew of young renegades who would tag city walls and especially subway trains at night. It was, he says, a form escapism for many who had fallen into drugs during Harlem's crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s. "There was a strong sense of community in our group, like a brotherhood, but you always got haters. There was violence [between graffiti groups] and it was tense. Like a jungle sometimes," he explains.

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JonOne's life changed course when he was sought out by French graffiti artist Bando. "At the time there was no internet or social media; people didn't communicate as they do now so we used fanzines and pictures around town and I guess I became a reference for people. I had a very particular style. You gotta imagine, everyone was doing something figurative or something graphic. I was doing some freaky s***!" he laughs, adding, "People would say, 'You're doing that scribbly scrabbly stuff, Jon!'"

Jon's unique style earned him respect. "Everyone had my number in those days and Bando called me up. I remember thinking he sounded like [Inspector Clouseau from] the Pink Panther or some shit like that! We met on 86th Street on the 1 Train. When he and his friends turned up, they looked so fresh-faced; so pure! They smelled like Europeans to me. They looked like they had money too and I was poor."

For all their differences, Jon recognised an artistic affinity. "New York [graffiti style] had arrows and people holding guns; it was more aggressive. These guys were doing things like different compositions of colours, they were inspired comic books like RanXerox. I wanted to go to Paris and see what they were doing for myself."

The young New Yorker saved enough money for a one-way ticket. With only a duffel bag and a handful of cash in his pocket, he left for Paris, where he has resided ever since. "Paris was the centre of graffiti at that time. We had an area in Stalingrad, around the 18th [district]. That's where the French Hip Hop culture was born. [Rappers] NTM and Assasin, actors like Saïd Taghmaoui from La Haine and [graffiti artist] Mode2 would all hang out there. So I got to live the Hip-Hop culture twice. Not only in the States but also in Paris, so I'm a lucky guy, he reminisces, adding, "Plus I met a French girl too. She was like Vanessa Paradis. It was like the cherry on top!"

But it wasn't all easy for the artist. "I used to say to myself, 'If I can stay here one more day, I am lucky. I don't gotta go back to New York.' One day turned out to be a week; one week became a month and it was just like that. I did whatever it took. Sometimes I slept in squats, sometimes friends gave me a bed."

His lucky break came when he was discovered by French designer and art lover Agnès Troublé, otherwise known as Agnès b. "To me, she represents the ultimate lady of French culture. I would go to her house and she would have parties with African musicians, artists from Sarajevo; there would be someone playing the violin or the cello. It was a place where there were no borders as far as culture is concerned. It corresponded to my état d'esprit," he explains, demonstrating a near-perfect French accent, gleaned, he says, from watching lots of French TV news.

Agnès b bought several of his artworks and hung them in her office and home – it helped him to rack up more commissions and eventually to fun commercial work like his recent endeavour with Hennessy which has taken him all around the world including Russia and Miami. While he's on this London stop off, he's hoping to check out the Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition at the Barbican. "He was friend with my friend, A-one [legendary New York Graffiti artist Anthony Clark]. I remember going to the [1981] show at the Mudd Club in Tribeca. You had all the godfathers of graffiti showing there like Lee [Quiñones] and Futura. They were my idols. I remember looking at the Basquiat and thinking, 'What the hell is this?! Then someone said 'Hey man, that's Basquiat and it's worth a lot of money'." I was young, and didn’t get it, but little by little I learned to appreciate what he was doing."

As for New York and Harlem, JonOne is adamant that he'll never go back. The same problems that you hear about today in America, are the same problems that I heard about 32 years ago," he says on a more introspective note. "I feel good here. I made the right choice and you know, I am much too European in my head." And on this final note, graffiti's thinking man heads off to finish his epic bottle-painting at Boxpark, no doubt hungry for that graffifi buzz.