With tensions in Israel high after the authorities there recently stopped Pro-Palestine activists from entering the country at the airport, Israeli street artists “Broken Fingaz Crew” arrived in the UK to put on an exhibition of their work last month, but it surprisingly featured no socio-political undertones and paid no attention to uprisings, dissent or revolution.

I recently spoke to Broken Fingaz Crew, who told me they cut this common and often exhausted MO of street art out of their work to focus on regaining some normality in a country under conflict and often intense scrutiny. Using their work as a bolthole to forget the stresses of religious and political tension has lent its hand to their vivid and original murals, where they use multicolour and bizarre characters such as a shifty looking chicken and a zombie apache Indian, instead of say a rat holding a sign or using the Black Panther insignia as their logo as the Occupy movement have.

“We try to paint whatever feels right and fun for us, and this is what comes out,” they said. “We are political people, you have to be coming from where we are from, but we don’t really feel like we need to push it into our art.”

Broken Fingaz Crew are the first street artists from Haifa to hold an exhibition of their work outside of Israel. The “Crazy Eye Hotel” exhibition was held at the Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane in East London from April 20^th to the 29^th. The art on show was a vivid imagining of a real life comic strip, one inhabited only by super villains in an alternate reality where their evil deeds are king.

“Because we’re Israeli we’re not allowed to go anywhere else in the Middle East. But if you go to Israel, you can see our work everywhere from the border with Egypt, up to the Golan in the North. We did some stuff inside army bases in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa of course.”

“It’s kind of like stepping into an alternate reality, like a 3D comic book, but it’s image led rather than driven by a narrative. It’s visceral. When you see it you feel like you’re inside some kind of crazy dimension.”

Jumping on a plane and flying half way across the world to Britain was a big step for the Broken Fingaz Crew, as being in Israel they’re not allowed to cross certain borders into the rest of the Middle East. Much of their street art can be found only behind the Haifa city limits.

“Because we’re Israeli we’re not allowed to go anywhere else in the Middle East. But if you go to Israel, you can see our work everywhere from the border with Egypt, up to the Golan in the North. We did some stuff inside army bases in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa of course.”

Whilst on the topics of borders, repression, militants and the entrapment of people within their own land, I asked what their views were on the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian people. They said: “Like any human being with a brain, we think the situation is fucked up. We do try to surround ourselves with people that think like us, both Arabs and Jews, and create our own small reality inside Israel. We won’t wait for the change to happen outside us, we try to live it ourselves. It is frustrating to live in a place where so many people are militant and racist, but it’s also our home.”

With luminous colours and strange effigies that wouldn’t look out of place on a bad trip of LSD depicted in their work, the Broken Fingaz Crew spoke about the process of creating these time consuming murals.

“When we look for a spot we normally look for a place that will look good, that already has a character or texture. That will add up for the work, and because we do posters and graphic design, the composition and the way we think is a lot of the time like that: with a main character, header and background. But we also try to change what we do according to the spot so that it will communicate with it.”

The Crazy Eye Hotel was a huge success with more than 1000 people through the doors in the first two days. After their exhibition had ended though, the gang of street artists had only one thing on their minds.

“It’s amazing,” they said. “It’s weird to be surrounded by people that care about the same stuff we care about. In our city if we talk about street art or the music we like people think we’re weird. Here it’s so common it almost makes you feel like it’s too mainstream! Everyone dresses really pretty, it makes you dirtier. But after the show we’re gonna buy new clothes.”

You can find more of the Broken Fingaz Crew art at www.brokenfingaz.com.

Follow Jake Hanrahan on Twitter: @OiJake

If you liked this, try these…

King Robbo Exclusive Interview: My Graffiti War With Banksy

Light Graffiti

Tom Lewis: The Urban Artist With Talent To Burn

Click here for more People stories

Click here to follow Sabotage Times on Twitter

Click here to follow Sabotage Times on Facebook