Exhibition: Gregor Minto at the Square Club

Born in Edinburgh in 1975, Gregor moved to Bristol in the early eighties. His fascination for graffiti art came after encountering Barton Hill’s ‘Dugout’ Community Centre in 1988, a well-known Mecca for street artists. This art form is still a major contributing factor to his work today.

Gregor went on to study Media Production at Plymouth College of Art and Design. During this period he founded the Small Time Rockerz (STR CREW) with other artists from London, Leicester and Bristol. This led to several large collaborations and further developed his own identifiable style under the name Boneidol (or BONE for short).

Returning to Bristol on leaving art school, Gregor saw a clear opportunity to raise the profile of serious graffiti artists in the city. Organising events at The Cube Cinema, Gregor began showcasing a number of now well-established artists, along with scratch DJs, animators, photographers, VJs, music producers and filmmakers. These events pulled in performances from the likes of DJ’s Madcut, Uppercut, Quest, G Pirelli,Trixta, Sickboy, Nick Walker, Inkie, The TCF Crew, China Mike, General Midi, Tom Oldham, Milan Spasic and Shirley Hopkinson.

As well as being an organising force in the Bristol cultural scene, Gregor has participated in major national events, painting live at Sprite’s Urban Games in 2000, to more recent events such as Awesomefest and Upfest along with commissioned work for Channel 4, charities and group shows. Most recently, Gregor was invited to contribute to the ‘See No Evil’ graffiti project, painting giant pieces in the centre of Bristol that were featured on BBC national news.

Aside from his more traditional live graffiti work, since 2000 Gregor has developed a personal painting style he calls ‘Instinctivism’. Combining elements of surrealist, colourist, abstract and impressionist theory with freestyle graffiti, this style employs imagination and instinct without the use of preliminary sketches. With no preconceived idea of the end result, Gregor freestyles through the piece until it is finished to his satisfaction. Due to the non-linear nature of this work, some pieces can take up to five years to complete.