If you’re walking around downtown Rapid City, it’s hard to miss the works of artist Aaron (AMP) Pearcy. His giant graffiti murals are displayed on several historic buildings, including the firefighters surrounding the patio of Firehouse Brewing Company. Using his talents for good, Pearcy travels with his nonprofit About This Life Inc. with the goal of spreading hope throughout communities through art. When he’s not up in cranes working on pieces that sometimes take 100 hours (true story), you can find him tattooing clients at Thrash’s Living Art Studio.
I live in … the heart of Rapid City, S.D.
I started getting into art when … I was 7 years old and living in Germany. I would get bored during church sermons and began drawing the people that were around me, and anything else that came to mind. I went to a flea market and watched an artist create beautiful photo-realistic collages of family photos using chalk pastels, and that is when my fascination for portraits began.
You might recognize my work from … Firehouse Brewing Company’s building, the side of the Elks Theatre, or the Central States Fairgrounds.
My history with Art Alley … goes back to when I was 16 years old. David Horan, my art teacher from Douglas High School, took us down there for a field trip, and it opened my eyes to a whole new world. That’s when my love of street art began. Looking back, I have to laugh, because my work was of beginner quality, but we all have to start somewhere. Some of my work that was in the alley consists of “The Sleeping Girl,” the “Art Speak Girl,” “The Old Man’s Face,” the “Love Mural,” and, as some people refer to it, the “Michael Angelo mural.”
It’s cool that people traveling in downtown Rapid City will see my works because … pictures say a thousand words. People are opened to a world of art and the idea that street art can be so much more than what they may be used to.
What some people misunderstand about street art is … that it’s an art form and not just tagging or graffiti. It isn’t just letter-based work, either. I recommend watching a movie that opened my eyes up a little to the world of street art called Exit Through the Gift Shop.
The most difficult graffiti piece I worked on was … a graffiti mural down in Boston, Massachusetts that was completed to open a dialogue amongst the community to hear stories of how the Boston Marathon bombings had affected them, and give them a shoulder to lean on if they needed. The wind in Copley Square was blowing at about 30-40 miles per hour, and we were painting on a piece of billboard vinyl 15 feet tall by 30 feet long, tied between trees, so it would move while we were trying to paint it. It was the most difficult, but the most rewarding at the same time. This was the project that birthed the nonprofit called About This Life Inc.
I started About This Life Inc. because … Sara Johnson Levy, Derek Smith, and myself wanted to start a nonprofit organization that uses street art to bring light to different topics in communities throughout the world to show people the power that art has to not only help heal, but to bring together communities.
For other art … I do some 3D modeling work, but am in the very beginning stages of that. I’ve had a love for sculpture ever since high school, and I still continue to have a love for it.
My love for travel came from … being a military brat. The cultures that I was able to experience opened my eyes to a world that was so new to me, and I can never seem to get enough.
One habit I have is … forgetting to rest. I was always taught to work hard for what I wanted, and so that’s all I have ever known. When you do what you love for a living, it’s easy to get lost in your work, and you begin to continue to take on more and more. Sometimes I stretch myself a little thin.
When I’m not working on art, I’m typically … spending time trying to polish and build on my relationships with my family and friends. It’s something that I sometimes overlook and take for granted.
Right now I’m really excited about … a baby that I have on the way.
Follow Pearcy on Facebook or on Instagram (ampgraffiti), and for more information on getting a tattoo, visit thrashstattoo.com.
