The south London artist Remi/Rough celebrates a glorious 25 years of spray can art this year. From the old-school subway art-inspired days to the abstract Ikonoklast movement of the 90s, through to holding court last year at the Tate Modern alongside Blek Le Rat, evolution of the form has always been Remi/Rough’s modus operandi. His latest exhibition Lost Colours & Alibis is now showing at the Art Lounge Gallery on Redchurch Street (which has received praise from Elms Lesters’s Paul Jones, who looks after Futura, Jose Parla, Phil Frost and Ron English in the UK) is inspired by Homer’s The Odyssey and is accompanied my Remi/Rough’s epic book of the same name. Get your slice of history here.

Dazed Digital: Can you tallk to us about the link between The Odyssey and Lost Colours & Alibis.
Remi/Rough: The Odyssey was a big deal to me when I first read it at school. I was obsessed with Greek mythology. I suppose a lot of it stems from my parents taking me to see Clash Of The Titans when I was little. I chose the title Lost Colours & Alibis for my show because I had started painting in vibrant colours again, something I hadn't done for years. The theme is all about The Odyssey. Every important story, land or person within the book are key catalysts for all the paintings in the show.

DD: The book chronicles 25 years of British art. How do you feel when you look back through the archives?
Remi/Rough: It's pretty scary really, seeing how much stuff has been done. I often wonder how many spray cans I went through in all those years. It took a long time to edit down what I had. There was just way too much. One third of the book was always going to be the catalogue of the show, so I had to bear that in mind all along too.

DD: Who else features in the book?
Remi/Rough: I have painted with so many amazing artists over the years and most of them feature in the book – Stormie, Derm, System, Timid, LX One, Ogre, Juice 126... there's far too many to mention. I got some incredible quotes and editorial from all my favourite artists and colleagues, Pure Evil, Stormie, Joker and Mike Ladd to name just a few.

DD: Which new artists are inspiring you and that we should be looking out for?
Remi/Rough: I've just seen Dran's show at Pure Evil and his work is incredible, also Marco Grassi from Milan, he's doing some intense abstract work that no one is touching at the moment.

DD: Did you have a plan when you started out?
Remi/Rough: Not really, I only ever started doing graffiti because girls thought it was cool... But now graffiti is in my past. My priorities have changed somewhat.

DD: You’re inspired by architecture as well as the abstract – how do they fit together?
 Remi/Rough: Abstraction and architecture go hand in hand. If you look at the work of Gaudi or Zaha Hadid, it's completely abstract. The thought process in architecture is all about expanding space. Abstraction is pretty similar. It's just a fresh perspective. The Beatles made 4/4 pop music for years until they couldn't do that anymore, they'd reached a point where what they had, needed to abstract. They then made Revolver and the White album. Everything reaches a point where it needs to abstract at some point in its existence.