HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Richard Wyrgatsch II is a graffiti artist who goes by the name “Slick.” His artwork has been featured around the world.
His latest project took him back to his alma mater, Aiea High School.
For the last two weeks, he and his team have been working day and night on a mural overlooking the school’s stadium and getting it ready for Friday’s homecoming game.
“It’s kind of a trip coming full circle and coming back and doing it legit, because the last time I was painting here, I was probably doing graffiti, illegal stuff on campus,” Wyrgatsch said.
“Like, I hit the cafeteria once, broke up with my high school sweetheart and I remember just being so heartbroken. And then I wrote her name on the building, in the cafeteria,” he said. “It’s funny, you can laugh about it now and stuff, but yeah, at the time the school wasn’t that happy about it.”
Slick appeared on KGMB’s Hawaii High show in 1984. In the video, you see him in his element as he and his crew, the Bomb Squad All-Stars, took over the stage.
“I sucked at b-boy. To be honest, I’m surprised they let me stay on Bomb Squad, you know, cause they’re all like, they’re all sick dancers, you know? But I was a graffiti writer, and I could make sets and things like that and yeah, I was on that creative side,” Wyrgatsch said.
With his creative skills, Slick moved to Los Angeles at 19 years old.
In 1989, he competed in one of the most famous battles in LA against another graffiti artist, Hex.
“We were battling on the wall and one of the people in the crowd watching it was a director, and he asked me to be in a video called Taste the Pain for Red Hot Chili Peppers, and then he also directed an Ice Cube video when Ice Cube left at NW, so when he did that, they wanted graffiti art in there so that was some of my early commercial work,” Wyrgatsch said.
“It wasn’t until later in my career that I started taking the art a little bit more seriously and not do so much streetwear and focus on the murals and the paintings and the sculptures,” he said.
Now he’s leaving his mark back home, where it all started.
“The main focus is these like Aiea hands, because a lot of people know me for the cartoon hands, LA hands in particular, which is something me and my wife actually owned the trademark,” Wyrgatsch said.
“I think that’s the whole beauty of our Aiea community is when our alumni come back and give back and it’s just perfect timing with homecoming coming up this week,” said Aiea High School principal Wayne Guevara. “It’s like Slick coming back representing the class of ’85, old stomping grounds, coming back home.”
“Even if it just gets through to like one youngster, that’s maybe not having a good day or whatever, and maybe if it could bring a smile or inspire them to do their thing, I feel like I succeeded,” Wyrgatsch said.
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