T
RUM T S K
By Catherine Bui Twenty eight year old Oliver Romieu aka RMSTK, considers the best thing about living in France is the red wine. Besides that he can’t really think of anything else. However it’s obvious that isn’t the case. Growing up in Gonesse, a little city in Paris’ proletarian suburbs, he was born into the graffiti movement during the 80’s that started his interest in art, alongside with comics and anime. “I grew up with a black pen in my pocket and wasted many days and hours covering blank pages with monsters of all kinds, and drawing look-alike portraits of Michael Jordan and Larry Bird,” says Romieu admitting he was a big fan of the NBA. However he wasn’t raised up in an artistic atmosphere at home, “no jazz in the living room or weekend trips to the museum” he recalls. And he never had the chance to visit an art museum until the age of 18! Despite this he still continued on with his interest in the arts and has been drawing since, constantly being
inspired by artists like ESPO and Honet to Keith Haring and Francis Bacon. Romieu’s illustrations are eccentric and quirky, each having its distinct personality accompanied by well-chosen colors to give the right mood and expressions. In his latest series of illustrations titled Cagoule(s), he draws about 35 different designs of ski masks that include each character’s unique eyes, lips and noses sometimes accompanied by wispy little moustaches or beards. A series of drawings motivated by his curiosity to “have fun with the unfunnable.” “I love the idea that one 15 inch piece of wool can cause so much fear. People are really scared of anyone behind a ski mask or any kind of mask, but the ski mask gives TV images of rape, robbery and any kind of danger,” says Romieu. Best of all he even drew a Title “Cagoule” for us. Cagoule(s) is now available in a paperback versions sold on Lulu.