Thanks to his artist dad, seven-year-old Niko Goring is learning the positive, inspiring ways of graffiti art, with his own personal dinosaur design now donning apparel such as hoodies, hats and stickers.--SUBMITTED PHOTO
lthomson@medicinehatnews.com
A father and son artist duo is working together to create colourful graffiti art. Jeff Goring and his seven-year-old son Niko have been spray painting art in the city for a few years.
“I’ve been doing graffiti art for about 20 years,” said Goring. “I love graffiti and the culture and showing people how to do it in a positive way. I think the Medicine Hat Graffiti Festival really shows people and artists in the city what we can do, and really helps local talent get to that level.”
Goring’s own son Niko is part of that group of upcoming local talent in the city.
“He’s always been around it, I know we have some really early pictures of him with cans,” said Goring. “But it’s pretty cool because now he can do it all on his own; he knows what’s going to give him a fat line, a skinny line, so now he’s pretty self sufficient with it.”
Niko, who is in Grade 2 at Ken Sauer Elementary School, showed an early interest in art and drawing.
“About three or four years ago, I started drawing. Last year, at the beginning of COVID, I drew a series of 12 dinosaurs,” said Niko. “My first series was a set of fully green dinos.”
He wanted to go out and sell his drawings door to door, but instead his parents helped him set up a sale on Facebook. His first set sold quickly, being shipped to supportive family and friends all over Canada. His older brother Nyxon helped him to package them and ship them. It wasn’t long after that Niko decided to draw and post his second collection of dinosaurs, some of which were sent as far Israel, Australia and Hong Kong.
“We were all pretty surprised,” said Goring. “It was awesome.”
After the successful sales, Niko’s parents helped him set up an Instagram account (@nyxandneeks) where he could post his latest work.
“We had a graffiti-based company from L.A. called Phat Caps contact us,” Goring explains. “They saw what Niko was doing and they mailed us 100 stickers of his dinosaur design. They just wanted to encourage what he was doing.”
With the help and support of his parents and a couple local companies, Niko now sells hoodies, hats, beanies, stickers and pins out of Top Notch on Third Street. The hoodies are first-hand tie-dyed by Niko and his family and then sent off, along with the other clothing items, to be printed at Motiv Apparel.
Niko’s hard earned money goes to a few important places; savings, charity and a big slushie.
He has also worked hard to spray paint many of his signature dinosaurs around the city.
“I know this summer he’s looking forward to going out and doing more graffiti art,” Goring said. “He can do it all on his own, but we always go together and get permission for locations and if I have a big mural job I try to get him a spot on it.”
Niko has good advice for other kids who want to get better at drawing and art – keep practicing.
“I drew probably about 670 dinosaurs on paper before I ever did a graffiti one,” Niko said.
You can find Niko’s graffiti dinos all over the city, including in the tunnel under Third Street SE, behind Motiv Custom Apparel and one beside the Olive Tap in the corner of the “Hope and a Future” mural, which was done by his dad Jeff.
