After 20 years, custom cars and cartoon images are still in style for lowbrow-art pioneer.

From early childhood, 12 Midnite knew he was meant to be an artist, but it took him a while to figure out that could be more than a dream. His big revelation came to him during a night at the movies. What he saw on the big screen in Victoria that night over two decades ago wasn't important. What he saw afterward changed his life.

"I was a teenager, and I remember I came out of the theatre and saw this thing by Richard Hambleton," says Midnite, interviewed in his Clark Drive studio. "He used to do chalk outlines of people on the sidewalk, but in paint. What I remember most was the shock of seeing it. I was like, 'Oh my God, someone's been murdered here.' My sister was with me, and she said, 'No, it's by an artist, and this is the work that he does.'

"That was a pivotal moment for me," he continues. "Up till then, I'd only seen art in the Campbell River Art Gallery. You know, eagles and totem poles. The immediacy of it made a huge impact; I'd never been so stricken by a piece of art. A few years later, I started doing that kind of thing myself."

As he tells this story, Midnite brushes thick lines of black paint on a giant cartoon wolf's head. His creation, which has a cigarette sticking out of grinning white teeth, is Grape Ape--coloured. Midnite has streaked-blond brown hair and sports his trademark cowboy boots, jeans, and a black wife-beater T-shirt.

It's appropriate that the 41-year-old doesn't put down his brush during the interview; he's worked nonstop since surfacing in Vancouver in 1984. This Saturday (June 12) at his Motion Sickness Studios (a garage-cum-workspace at 333 Clark Drive), Midnite celebrates his 20th year as a local underground artist. Over the past two decades he's become a major figure in a proudly lowbrow Vancouver art scene that includes players such as Nicole Steen, Vickie M., and I, Braineater. Typically revolving around cartoon characters and hot rods, his paintings don't hang in traditional galleries but in the homes of people like him: rock 'n' roll fans with an insatiable appetite for pop culture. Midnite, who studied at both the University of Victoria and the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, wouldn't change that.

"I really don't take art seriously, and I definitely don't pay attention to what goes on at the Vancouver Art Gallery," he says. "I don't care about being accepted by people who intellectualize art. A while ago I saw this thing about the kind of art that's hanging in the Governor General's mansion, and I thought 'Man, if I was in the Governor General's mansion, I wouldn't think that I was successful. I would think that I was a failure.' If you're there, you've been accepted by the hoi polloi, which means you're not doing anything that's groundbreaking or exciting."

If Midnite has never strayed far from the street, it's because that's where he got his start. Inspired by Hambleton's chalk outlines, he used public spaces as his canvas when he first arrived in Vancouver from the Island. Armed with a stencil and a can of spray paint, he was determined to make a name for himself on city walls. Before long, his guerrilla works--sperm circling a dollar sign, or, more infamously, Lady Liberty aiming a gun--were common sights.

"There was a political element to what I was doing," he reflects. "It was the Reagan era, and I was trying to get across what we were all thinking: that it was a scary time to be alive."

Right away, he says, people starting talking about him.

"I think that was because the art was so immediate. If you go out one night and hit a bunch of buildings, the next day you're the guy that left your mark. It was an intoxicating feeling to be at parties and have people go 'Hey, you're that guy--I've seen your stuff.' "

When asked how he's evolved over the years, the man born Shon Franks replies, "Well, I haven't really." After three years as a graffiti artist, he began holding shows at Emily Carr and the Helen Pitt Gallery.

"It was around that time that I came upon the idea of using cartoon characters in what I do," Midnite says. "If you show a guy getting blown up, that doesn't mean much. But if you have Sgt. Rock getting blown up, and Superman and Captain America are covering their ears, it makes a lot more of a political statement."

Past works, viewable on his Web site (www.12midnite.com/), have placed Bambi in the headlights of a '59 Impala, recast Mickey Mouse as a hell-bound corpse, and depicted a '50s-adventure-comic cowboy gunning down the Cat in the Hat. Look around his studio and you'll find Sea Monkeys lording over a '49 Chevy or Woody Woodpecker guarding the same car with a club. Most dramatic is a massive, wall-size canvas of Knothead and Splinter Woodpecker, Tommy guns in hand, dragging a red wagon full of money across a map of the United States.

Woody Woodpecker surfaces a lot in Midnite's work. "I don't know why that is," he admits. "He certainly doesn't have any redeeming qualities. Maybe it's because he was used as a logo for Clay Smith Cams, a camshaft company from the '50s. He sort of connects two of the things that I love: cars and cartoons."

The son of a mechanic and stock-car racer, Midnite currently owns two vintage automobiles: a low-riding '59 Impala and a '49 Chevy. The Impala is decked out with orange flames, making it a rolling, not to mention functional, piece of art. After Midnite is done with the wolf's head, he plans to get started on his next work: the Chevy. He has spent the past year rebuilding the car, which he totalled four years ago. All that's left now is to paint it for next Saturday's anniversary. "Without a party, I don't ever finish anything," he says. "I'm the kind of guy that doesn't do a lot of paintings unless I have a show."

In addition to 20 years of Midnite's work and the unveiling of his "Back From the Dead" Chevy, those who head down to Motion Sickness on Saturday can also expect musical performances by the artist's hellbilly alter ego Billy-Bill Midnite, as well as Braineater, Steen, and Big John Bates.

"I've always played at my shows. What I learned from Braineater was the importance of turning them into events."

Midnite may not take art seriously, but he is seriously committed to making art. In 1990 he founded the Smash Gallery on Cordova as a Warhol--type Factory for himself and his like-minded friends. Smash, which shut down after a three-year run, was the largest independent art gallery in Canada. Today, Midnite runs a smaller space, the New Tiny in Chinatown, which recently hosted a show by Canadian cult artist ManWoman. Two decades after he first took to the streets, 12 Midnite has lost none of his enthusiasm for art.

"I'm happy to be where I am, that's for sure. Who really gets to do what they want every day? Today I feel like painting a big purple wolf. Tomorrow I'll hang out with ManWoman. On Saturday I'll get to paint this car. I don't make a lot of money, but I get to do whatever I feel like, and that's pretty darn lucky."

12 Midnite: 20 Years of Midnite Madness takes place Saturday (June 12) at Motion Sickness Studios (333 Clark Drive).