By Zio

by Judd Katz  Photos by Dorothy Hong

Greg Lamarche, also known as SP.ONE, is an artist living and working in New York City. A highly respected graffiti writer since the early ‘80s, his precise letter structure and attention to detail has influenced generations of graffiti and street artists around the world.

In 1992, Greg started Skills Magazine as a collection of color and black-and-white Xeroxed graffiti images. Skills grew in popularity and eventually became a reflection of early hip-hop culture, featuring interviews with pioneers of the movement, including Mobb Deep, Black Moon and Masta Ace.

Since that time, his status as a graffiti icon has continued to grow, while he’s simultaneously carved out a successful career for himself as an artist. His gallery work, comprised largely of intricate collages informed by typography, has been featured in galleries, magazines and as part of commercial projects.

In a society where graffiti writers often have a difficult time gaining legitimacy and acknowledgement from the art establishment, Greg is the rare exception. Typography enthusiasts, graffiti writers, artists and designers alike respect his work. Greg’s upcoming show, “Things I Picked Up Along The Way,” highlights his progression from the street to the gallery, and reinforces his unique appeal.



As a graffiti writer, there was a point when you started to paint futuristic, sharp pieces that became one of your signature styles. What made you move beyond traditional letters and begin experimenting with new typographies?

Experimenting with new typographies is the essence of graffiti. I grew up in Queens and started writing in 1981. So I was a big fan of the letter lines. The E, F, J, M and GG were all trains I rode and benched on the regular. The letter lines had a different style than the numbers trains. These trains were dirtier and weren’t covered with elaborate wild styles. There were crews like RTW, TKC, and TPA doing thick, chunky letters that were legible and had loads of style. I also love curvy letters but there was something about what these guys were doing that really influenced my piecing style and the way I saw letters. Over the years I have added the hard lines and developed my own recognizable style that is very graphic in nature but definitely born out of many hours watching the trains go by.

Skills Magazine, which you started in 1992, was very collage heavy, with lots of pictures of graffiti from different artists. Did the process of creating Skills at that time effect the collage-heavy work you produce now?

It didn’t affect my work at the time, but doing the magazine cut-and-paste style was an extension of my interest in collage. Even though I didn’t know it at the time, it was the start of the connection between my collage work and graffiti writing. I was doing collage work many years before I started Skills, but that was the first time I merged the two.



Your collages that feature cut out letters and phrases—when did you make your first one? Was it a progression from another style you were doing before?

Letters were always part of my work. In a way, everything I do builds upon the work that came before it. I started doing more of the word and phrase pieces in 2000-02, when my collage and graffiti styles really began to gel.

You have a solo show coming up in April at White Walls in San Francisco. Will you be introducing new work for this show and will there be any surprises in store for your fans?

Surprises for sure… The majority of the collages were done this year so no one has seen any of the work yet.  The show will have a slight autobiographical feel to it that loosely tracks my progression from graffiti writer to now, and how it’s all linked together.