A great lover of music, artist Jérémie Drévillon, aka breizh44stencil, uses stencil technique to make many portraits of artists he loves, on different media, classical canvas, wood, and also vinyls.

Hi Breizh44, today MoW selected 5 of your artworks inspired by music. Can you tell MoW Why you chose those music artists ?

Because I love their music!

What was the music behind the artworks ? What inspired you to create them ?

All their music inspire me! But I really like these clips :

"Vocab" for Lauryn Hill

The Roots "Tip The Scale" emotion conveyed by this song is particularly intense :

and impossible to choose one for Marley...

Why is music important to you and your art?

Music has always been important for me. I can’t really explain why but I know that I couldn’t live without music. When I began to paint and use stencils, I naturally made portraits of musical artists who are important to me. When I look for a new artwork, I always end up choosing the portrait of a musician or singer. I also want to make portraits of actors, for example, but in the end, my choice is music artists.

If you had to choose between the artworks presented today, which of your artwork would be your favorite ? And why ?

I can't really choose... Musically, I will choose Miles Davis because it is thanks to him that I discovered the wide world of jazz . I often listen the album "Scketches of Pain" by Miles Davis

Artistically, I would choose Joey Starr because it is my first "halftone stencil". It took me a long time to do this artwork and I am quite proud of the result. I got inspired mostly by this NTM 's show!

Can you tell MoW more about the techniques you used. How long does it take you to make an artwork?

Basically I use stencils. First I select a source image. Then the key question is how many colors I want to work with. How many colors will determine how many stencil plates my image will require. Once I have my image, I use an image editing program to create my multilayers stencil. Then I print the different layers on paper and I cut, I cut, I cut...

Finally I use spray paint for the successive layers. I also sometimes used Posca and/or brush for details and I mix all these techniques for background.

How old is your technique? How did it start?

I do stencils since 3 years. I discovered artworks of Dan23 and then C215 and Jef Aerosol. And so, I thought , "why not try to make stencil"...

How long does it take you to make an artwork?

It depends on the number of layers, on the canvas dimension, on the background details. For example, to do the halftone stencil of Joey Starr, I spent 12 hours cutting the black dots...

Do you have plans on creating new artworks insipired by music ?

I have many ideas but not enough time to perform all...

Do you listen to music when you’re working ? If so, what kind of music ?

Often, yes. I listen to many different styles and I think it shows in my work. I love Soul/Funk music (Funkadelic, Syl Johnson, Ann Peebles, Jimmy Smith, Prince, ...), Jazz (Miles Davis, Headhunters, Michel Petrucciani, Billy Cobham, The Brecker Brothers, Herbie Hancock,...), Rock (Led Zeppelin, Infectious Grooves, Pink Floyd, Mugison, Gong, Radiohead, Jehro Trull, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Radio Moscow, Jeff Buckley...), Metal (The Haunted, Opeth, Trepalium, Gojira, Lofofora, Megadeth, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Pantera, Red Fang...), Blues (The Mountain Men, Left Lane Cruiser, Jimi Hendrix...), and Hip-Hop (The Roots, NTM, Jeff Spec, Chinese Man, Jurassic Five, De la Soul, MC Circulaire...).

What is the song you liked the most lately? The album ? What was the last gig you went to ?

The song I like the most at the moment is "Lost In The Sound" of Chill Bump.