Gomer, well, the man behind the name and a whole plethora of others, is a strong proponent of the full on colour piece whatever the location, whether it be a roof top or track side, legal or illegal, it needs to be rocked with style and colour. As a writer, Gomer does not specialise in any one thing, but manages to hold down a bit of everything, the walls are nailed and steel is also on lock.


When did you start writing and how did you get into graffiti?

I started writing in around 2002, by the end of 2004 it had become serious. Between 2002 and 2004 I mainly just bombed and drew a lot... I was just starting high school and I didn’t know anyone who did graffiti, I wasn’t aware of anything like shops or spots. But, it changed in 2004 when I met other writers in my school and then I really started to sink into graffiti. I first discovered graffiti in 1995, I was seven years old when one of my older cousins gave me a black and white sketch of my name and asked me to put some colours on it... I went back home after this vacation and I remember noticing the writing and drawings on the walls of the freeway bordering our city for the first time. It really was a shock to me and I was dying to go back to see my cousin and ask him why people were doing that and what it meant.
   Then I graduate high school, my classmates weren’t really into graffiti, at least not as much as I was and we went our separate ways, I found myself back alone in graffiti... Finally one day, going back home I saw someone painting on the front yard of a house just 50 meters from my own home... I stayed a few seconds watching this guy who seemed to be 10 years older than me and looked really gifted. Then I ran to my place, grabbed one of my black-books and ran back to ask him to come down from his ladder and have a chat... We had a cool, but quick chat because he was working, he told me his name which I didn’t know and we decided to try to do something together later... I went back home and saw a tag of one of the oldest bombers of my neighbourhood and I figured out that it was the name the guy told me he was ‘Révolte!’ (French for ‘Revolt!’).
   He will kick my ass for saying that, but it was one of my influences at the time. It was four years ago, he introduced me to most of the writers I know now and there is not week that passes without us seeing each other, he’s one of my closest friends.

What is it like where you come from?

I’m from Villeurbanne, a suburban town which blends into the second biggest French town after Paris in south east France: Lyon. There’s an upcoming scene in our town and we are a close and tight bunch of writers from different crews gathered under the name ‘Villeurbanne Coast.’ It’s half a crew, half a kind of a joke about all the gangsters posing in the French suburbs, faking American styles; West Coast and shit...

I know that you use a lot of different names for example Gomer and Skure. What are your main names and how do you use them differently?

I love graffiti and I don’t want to be the kind of writer that says ‘this is real graffiti and that is not etc.’ I want to try and do everything, but in France, like everywhere, when it comes to painting trains the assholes from the other side are really organised and have got real investigating power. There is always someone ready to save his cowardly ass by talking shit, so I started to think that it would be better for my nerves if I came up with an undercover name.
   The risk is really too high compared to the gain, at least from my point of view. I do public performances and commissions under the name of Gomer, so I really had to separate these two things if I wanted to be able to sleep well at night (laughs).
   I use a lot of different names on trains... I won’t list them, it would be too long, but I used to do five paintings with one name and then change. It prevents me from long time investigation, at least I hope it does. It’s also an opportunity to try new letters. But, I did several trains with the Skure name that I really like...
   On legal walls, track sides, roof tops or bombing I use Gomer, and don’t get me wrong, I love this name and this is really me... But, there is a freedom on trains, coming from the fact that only a few people will see it, it’s buffed within the month. It allows me to try things, styles or colours I wouldn’t have dared on walls. And then I can come back to the walls with new self confidence coming from the fact that I tried things before with another name and incorporate new style elements to my Gomer work.

It’s lucky to get trains that might run for up to a month! What does ‘Gomer’ mean and how did you come about using it and have you always used it?

Nowadays Gomer is my name. My friends joke about it because it means ‘someone who is rubbing out.’ (In French ‘gomme’ means eraser) I really like it. I started out with lot of different names and one day I came up with ‘Omer’ because of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. I was 17 and knew nothing about other writers and one day on vacation in Marseille, I met a French guy who had been writing Omer since the ’80s... Plus, there was a Parisian train writer using the same name for years, I found that it was time to become someone else. I just added the ‘G,’ because I really liked the letters and I didn’t want to lose them.
   I found out recently that it’s actually a real Israeli name, the name of a town in South France and moreover the name of the adulterous wife of the Jesus prophet Hosea in the bible... I’m atheist and it was really funny to find out that I was using the name of a street whore that a prophet was forced, by Jesus, to marry…

The FULL interview with Gomer appears in issue 51 of Graphotism magazine - click here to purchase your copy.