Paint Freaks

DPS resident paint freak Matteo Salomoni fills us in on his internship with mural painters Paint Freaks. 

As part of my Diploma in Professional Studies, I am completing an internship at Paint Freaks, a company specialized in the realization of murals on commission, with a strong emphasis on spray cans as a medium of choice.

Due to the nature of the company’s work, most of the art has to therefore be created on location within a given time period. My first experience with working in this situation took place within the first week of my internship, whereby I had to commute to Basingstoke to work in Flip Out, a trampoline park which is just opening. The job consisted in the application of black colour coats on the ceilings and walls of the site with spray guns and green for the central pillars. This experience taught me many things, from how to correctly operate and clean spray guns, healthy and safety precautions on site, as well as communication in group work to ensure everyone is fulfilling their responsibility to the fullest. I also had to complete a scissor and boom lift training for this specific job, which now allows me to operate these machines confidently, and will definitely be useful for any mural work at heights I might do in the future.

One of the elements I really enjoy about this internship is also the fact that some travel is required to reach sites, some of which not in the UK; this has given me the opportunity to see new places I’d never been to. My second job, for example, was in Copenhagen, at the X Jump Trampoline Park, and was perhaps one of the biggest jobs I have taken part in. It consisted in the projection and mapping of a pre-approved design onto the walls of the park, followed by the final stages of spraying. This experience as well was very useful because I learnt how to efficiently project designs to scale and mark them, which is one of the fundamental stages of mural work, as well as how the designs are re-created from the very beginning to the end.

I am now in the initial stages of designing my very own mural, which will be created on the shutters of Nana Susie’s Cafè in London. This would be one of the first experiences of this kind for me, and having learnt the basic notions to correctly project and mark, it should help me apply this in my own work. I believe this will be the most formative opportunity, as I am already learning how to correctly interact with the clients from the initial briefing stages, through the approval of the final design work.

In conclusion, I can say that this internship has proved to be a very fun, engaging and formative experience, and I am very excited for what is to come in the future. I am learning how the company itself operates as a business, briefing to a client, and many other elements of running a business which are just as important as the final artwork itself.