LA-Based Street Artist Gune Monster Returns to Kansas City Roots

After losing his job and apartment on the same day a couple of years ago, Los Angeles-based street artist Gune Monster says he contemplated a suicide. Instead, he picked up a marker and begin drawing the toothy, ghoulish figures that would eventually become the hallmark of his  alter ego.

First, he drew about 50 stickers a day. The number quickly climbed to upwards of 350 hand drawn, colored and cut stickers , many of which would eventually make their way onto the poles, benches and other public spaces scattered around Los Angeles. Larger murals would eventually follow as the street artist’s ambitions grew.

“Murals change people’s lives” he says. “They change your opinion of the wall. It changes it from being some ratty wall that’s got some tag or some weird penis that’s got some hair to an amazing, beautiful mural that’s got a hummingbird flying through the sky with birds and mountains.”

Gune Monster also feels that creating murals offers developing graffiti artists an opportunity to mature by forcing them to openly confront the public with their work in a more much more personal and direct way.

“You’ve no longer going out at night” he says. “You’re no longer hiding in a gallery. You’re no longer putting up stickers. You are now in daylight, in the public, being judged by everybody that sees you. And that’s when you’re at that point where you’re confident enough to spread your art.”

Gune Monster returned to his hometown of Kansas City this past June to live mural at the City Ice Arts Building — a converted warehouse in the city’s arts district that houses a collective of local artists and artisans. Though he wasn’t able to paint at the Kansrocksas Music Festival (the event was cancelled), his new clothing line and projects in Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Las Vegas continue to keep this elusive artist fully occupied.

Check out his website for more great images of his work.

Words by Carolyn Okomo, a Kansas City, MO-based writer. 
Images by Dave Dumay of City Ice Arts and Carolyn Okomo.