The artist Scott Coleman effortlessly shifts between worlds of night and day; high and low culture; the seen and unseen.
More commonly known as KAB101, he is a revered and independent artist practicing his own style derived from graffiti, mass media and print communication for over 30 years. His graphic letterforms push at the boundaries between calligraphy and hieroglyphics and demonstrate a level of mastery and invention second to none.
The City of Prospect recognised his enduring practice in 2014, bestowing an official dual-naming of Honeysuckle Lane as KAB101 Lane. In 2021, for Anti-Type at Newmarch Gallery, he exhibited a new series of paintings of encrypted letterforms, symbols and an archival collection of markers, black books and sketches documenting his fascination with text, type, ink and paint – much of which was developed, refined and tested in or for KAB101 Lane.
Working across sculpture and installation, KAB101’s artwork displays a curiosity and intensity through his political and radical approach towards material and the interrelationships of type and objects. Graffiti culture offers a departure point and ongoing way of seeing/making for the artist.
Provisional State (2013), a CACSA commission, and Silver Grey (2005) at Downtown ARI, both demonstrated his meticulous and obsessive understanding of materials, aesthetics and spatial awareness. Memory, the archive, and attention to detail are earmarks of this work, extending his practice beyond painting.
KAB101’s deep consideration of the relationships between surface, scale and style are highlighted in his whole tram-wrap artwork commissioned as part of CACSA’s The NEW NEW (2010) exhibition and Station to Station (2012) which featured his painted calligraphic forms covering the entirety of a red hen train carriage. Both commissions importantly, included the running of these carriages as part of the public transport system in metropolitan and regional South Australia.
KAB101 has been featured in Wall to Wall, Artlink (2014), and numerous publications including Wildfire (2022), Kings Way (2009), and Scrawl 2 (2001), a feature documentary Anti-Type (2022), and is profiled within Rash (2005), Contents Under Pressure (1999), and the seminal Australian graffiti documentary, Sprayed Conflict (1994).