Featured artist - Sapo Henxs

Featured artist - Sapo

Henk KramerFeb 22, '21

Sapo has  been fascinated by graffiti and breakin` since the first time  he saw the music video `Hey You` from the Rock Steady Crew. As a kid living in the countryside away from other kids and without cable television his sister, little brother and himself did a lot of drawing.



"When I went to town on the back of my mom`s bicycle and I saw graffiti I always told her that I also would love to make graffiti myself. Then she literally always replied to me with: `Naoteurlik jùngske, as dejj-ù later zestieën zeet-j, dan moog-dje beëj ôs de zeéjkant van òs hoeës verve`. We spoke in a Dutch dialect and translated it means: `ofcourse my favourite second kid (I was the middle of three kids ), when you're 16 you can paint the side of our house!'.Too bad my parents divorced when I was 15 and we moved to a terraced house.



In 2000 Sapo started bboying and the same year he and a couple of friends formed a Bboy and Bgirl crew and named it The Floorburnin`crew`. Every Tuesday they drove to Sittard to learn fresh breaking moves from Nash and his friends in a place called the Fenix. "There I saw al the graffiti from Nash and I was a huge fan straight away and I knew I also wanted to paint characters. My friend Bogey and I started to paint on some local bridges and power houses. We were usually very drunk and ended  up painting each others shadow and other foolish stuff. I decided painting graffiti was nothing for me after all and quit."



In 2007 Sapo came in contact with a local writer named Grant and he decided to give graffiti another try. They painted a lot in the famous "Berenkuil" in Eindhoven and learned a lot from other writers. Sapo always painted the same character : a kind of ball with eyes and no mouth. After some time he became friends with Casroc and he learned him how to finetune the characters and other tricks to paint.



"In 2013 my cousin bought a snackbar from a Chinese family named `Friture Min` in Susteren. He changed the name in `Friture Plus`and asked me to create a character. I made a sketch for him of a frikandel (a Dutch penis shaped snack) with Disney ears and anime eyes and yes : the first Sapito was born ! From that day onwards when I start to paint a character I always start with the base of a frikandel."



In 2015 Sapo was invited by Chas  to paint in the centre of Eindhoven with some real good artists. It's where he met Nash again and they started talking about the good old bboy parties in Sittard and after a while Chas joined the conversation and said : "Hey Nash, why don`t you take Sapo as a student?".



"From that day untill now I am painting, joking around and most important learning a lot from one of the most talented and living graffiti dictionaries Nash and of course also with my Limbuddy friend Dase from Belgium. For me painting is about having fun, learning and evolving."





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