Tom Deams
For some graffiti writers it is the process rather than the final outcome that is the motivation behind their craft; and to watch Deams (Deamz/Deamze) honing yet another complex, multi-layered, semi-abstract burner to within an inch of fracturing, exploding, and flying off the wall into orbit, is to see a man truly in love with the act of painting itself (coincidentally deamo means ‘to be passionately in love with’ in Latin). And who can blame him? As any self-confessed aerosol-addict will tell you, propelling multi coloured spray paint onto a wall all day is, at its deepest, a form of moving meditation; relaxing, exhausting and hugely rewarding, all at the same time.
Now well into his third decade of painting, Deams’ style has reached that plateau where it is uniquely, unmistakably, and utterly his own. Whether painting his cartoon-like, beveled-edged straight letters; super complex retro-futuristic burners; or indeed, those open abstract spaces that seem to explore the insides of letters; a Deams painting identifies itself at a hundred paces. Deams is a ‘style writer’ in the truest sense of the phrase.
