If you didn't see our Instagram competition to win this beauty of a sweater then click here. Here is more about Denzel, the talented artist behind the design.

I spent all 2018 doing everything I could to get promoted at my day job as a graphic designer; by December I was worn out and disappointed in myself.

I had let a lot of my personal goals go in place of professional ones and I just had to say to myself "Denzel, sugar plum, this can't run!".

I went home to Birmingham over Christmas to spend time with my family and while I was there I wrote a list of everything that I love both big and small including music, movies, TV shows, Instagram accounts, YouTuber's, cartoons, mythology, books, places, food, literally everything that makes me happy.

When I looked at it there were two themes that kept coming up, Mythology, Art and Fashion. From there the answer seemed obvious. I went to the art shop on boxing day and bought as may canvases brushes and paints as I could in the sale and went to a whole bunch of charity shops and bought all the second hand clothes that fit me.

From there I proceeded to paint as many horrible paintings as I could until they weren't horrible any more and 3 months later I cleared out my personal Instagram account, changed my name to CurrieGOAT and posted my first picture of me standing next to a canvas painting and a sweatshirt that I painted.

I've been posting "streetwear art" to my Instagram since March 2019 when I had 400 followers and now in August 2019 I have over 13K.

My work is all about storytelling and meaningful art; it's inspired by myths and legends. The idea is to take meaning from these stories and make it accessible through mediums that people who come from backgrounds like myself can easily understand.

My paintings have been inspired by all sorts of stories from Egypt, Asia, and even Greek mythology. Like the very first Instagram post, I made based on the Hecatonchires, whose story is about overcoming circumstance, to the collab with Avaider, which is based on Cerberus, the watchdog of the underworld who prevented soul from escaping or getting in without permission. The creature is characterised by having 3 heads representing the past, present, and future and having the ability to turn people to stone. It was a creature that you couldn't avoid...avoid, avoid??? lol.

My favourite piece is a sweatshirt I made based on Tibetan Buddhist Masks. I love the way the Red pops against the Beige worked and I can really see the progression in my line work on that piece.

The masks resemble the faces of deities/spirits which the departed souls see after dying on the path to their next life. When I posted a picture of it to Reddit I got a message from an actual Tibetan Buddhist @taenzynxo who schooled me on the cutler and told me how much he loved seeing traditional art from his culture in a modern context, which had me so gassed.

 

To see more of his streetwear art, check out Denzel's instagram: @curriegoat