Robert del Naja AKA 3D is a founding member of the one of the best bands of the 1990’s, Massive Attack, and is also the man behind their visual image, his art, prints and graffiti representing the band from ‘Blue Lines’ to ‘Heligoland’.
3D has been a graffiti artist since his teenage years and is credited with being one of the first people to bring American hip-hop and graffiti culture to Bristol in the early 1980’s. And it was in Bristol that his crew ‘The Wild Bunch’ were to plant the seeds that led to the likes of Banksy becoming a mega-star urban artist. Indeed Banksy has cited del Naja as a major influence on his work.
When looking at Del Naja’s prints you’re immediately struck by their simplicity and stark beauty, each one imbued with a industrial aesthetic that is at once modern and graphic, rooted in his politics and involvement in Palestinian youth projects, the cultural boycott of Israel, human rights for prisoners lobbies and the Occupy movement.
It’s not too often you post up art work by an artist whose music was so influential on your youth. Even more extraordinary is the fact that del Naja was a well known graffiti artist before he founded Massive Attack, a seminal British band. A man with undoubted talent and a passion that is evident in everything that he does.
