When Davie MoMo rolled into town seven months ago from California, his first impression was not exactly what everyone else sees in this tropical paradise: "I liked the surfaces," said the 24 year old artist.
MoMo, a self-taught artist in the Hip Hop culture of graffiti was instantly drawn to the big outdoor wall surfaces in New Town, and within weeks he lined up and executed the mural you see on Tropical Tan's wall. This abstracted, almost cartoon-ishly designed "Sunset" is hand painted, and it led to another mural nearby in a completely different art style.
"Bobby of Bobby's Roofing commissioned me to paint the marine life on the walls of the North Roosevelt liquor store," said MoMo. "The building will be a seafood restaurant soon, and I call the giant lobster and grouper mural `Seafood Before It Gets To Your Mouth'."
Large-scale painting just comes naturally to MoMo, who says he's been painting and drawing since he was a tot. His time investment and art experience is hugely apparent, especially when you know he didn't pre-plan any grid for enlarging the realistic sea creatures. The superb drawing, which was accomplished by tying a pencil to a 14-foot wooden handle, and the subtle, subtle shading of the hand painted fish in "Seafood" is a testament to his mastery of basic art techniques; a mastery that includes oils and water paints.
"Four years ago, I moved from highly detailed water paintings of people's homes, which financed a lot of my travel, to the cartoon-like free flow of graffiti art," said MoMo, who admits he is influenced by the Hip Hop movement. "I painted on the graffiti-legal-walls out West in cities like Los Angeles and Olympia, but I'm not a ghetto kid from the inner-cities; I often see my parents in Boston."
On smaller, wall-sized works of art, MoMo's traditional use of oils and water paints swing from the kind of tight control of his brush that's displayed in "Seafood" to the loose, near-abstract look of the "Sunset" mural on Tropical Tan. Such softer, free-flowing edges adds a fantasy quality that "brings life to a house without having people in it."
His breadth of artistic styles, and his choice of surfaces, is akin to local favorite, Rick Worth.
"I haven't met him, but I've chased his vans all around town, and I've seen his work on phone books and murals," said MoMo. "In fact, I've just been commissioned to spray paint a big Suburban."
MoMo has also recently accepted a commission in Jamaica, with his buddy Cayman, (who by day, is a Fast Buck Freddy's window artist) to build and paint a giant shark's head. Cayman does the 3-D; MoMo does the painting.
Because MoMo has concentrated his outdoor art in New Town, he says he's had no run ins with the Permitting Nazis. Still, he's anxious to leave his mark on Old Town: "I love the upbeat feeling of mural painting, and the public sense of it, but I'm never giving up my oils or watercolors."
Me thinks Key West will be seeing a lot more of Davie MoMo.