Interview with Sonny Sundancer: Charcoal, Liminal Realism and the Thresholds of the Wild
Charcoal may be one of the oldest artistic materials, but in the hands of Sonny Sundancer it feels radically alive. Known worldwide for his vast, colourful murals addressing species decline and the fragility of nature that transform city walls from Johannesburg to New York, Sonny has, in recent years, deepened his exploration of a visual philosophy he calls Liminal Realism.
This idea runs through his recent practice, in murals, canvases, and now in charcoal, where animals appear suspended between two worlds, their forms within abstraction, their presence both real and symbolic. In his murals, this threshold often speaks with urgency and scale. In his charcoal works, the same threshold takes on a different character: quieter, slower, more introspective. Rendered in carbon, a material as ancient as fire itself, these portraits of animals are at once hyperreal and dreamlike, personal and mythic.
For Sonny, charcoal is more than medium: it is a discipline, a reversal of his painting process, and a meditation. Each drawing requires patience, precision, and trust in every mark, since nothing can be hidden or layered away. This stripping back, both technical and symbolic, has become central to his practice.
And it is here that Liminal Realism comes into focus: a philosophy born of thresholds. Between nature and the urban. Between myth and memory. Between what is real and what is imagined. In an age where both humans and animals are being displaced, abstracted, and reshaped by expansion and change, Sonny’s animals hold their ground. They are fearless, aware, even curious… guardians of a world we are only beginning to understand.
We caught up with Sonny as he delves into the ideas shaping his newest body of charcoal works, where striking, lifelike realism meets the abstract language and conceptual clarity of Liminal Realism.
Part I: Process and Materials
GraffitiStreet
You are widely known for your large-scale murals across cities around the world. What draws you back into the studio to work in charcoal and carbon?
Sonny Sundancer
Drawings were actually the very first works of art I ever created, even before I started painting on the streets. So when I returned to charcoal and paper three or four years ago, it felt very natural, almost like coming full circle.
Since then, these charcoal works have become an increasingly important part of my studio practice. They bring a completely different rhythm to my process and are far more introspective than the energy and scale of working on a wall. Plus, they give me the rare opportunity to not be covered in paint.
Working only with values, without the distraction of colour, is almost more meditative. It snaps me out of my usual procedure when creating artwork; with paint, I build up layers from dark to light, but with charcoal, it’s the opposite, I mark the shadows to reveal the light. It’s a very different challenge, almost like a reversal of my usual process, and I really enjoy pushing myself in that way.
GraffitiStreet
Charcoal and carbon are raw, ancient materials that have been used for thousands of years to record life and mark memory. Why do these mediums speak to you so deeply?
Sonny Sundancer
It really does feel that way when I’m using them. It’s like I’m connecting not just to my own roots as an artist, but to something much older. There’s a rawness to it, everything’s stripped back compared to painting. I think it makes the process feel really personal and meditative.
GraffitiStreet
Technically, charcoal and carbon are challenging. What do you find most difficult about working with them, and what do they offer that paint or spray cannot?
Sonny Sundancer
Charcoal is definitely unforgiving. Unlike paint, it can’t be layered endlessly to hide mistakes so every mark has to be intentional.
Much of the process is about taking away as much as it is about adding, which forces me to think in reverse compared to how I approach a painting. With murals and canvases, I use a wide range of tools and complex colour palettes, but with charcoal it’s just a handful of simple materials. That simplicity is liberating and challenging.
I like mixing things up in my practice; whether it’s switching between different sizes or surfaces, like murals, canvas, or paper, or working with different mediums like paint, sculpture, or charcoal. Each one uses a different part of my brain in a way, and moving between them keeps things fresh and helps me to keep growing.
GraffitiStreet
Your mural work can be fast, physical, and public. Charcoal drawings are slow, solitary, and precise. How does that change in pace affect your mindset as an artist?
Sonny Sundancer
With murals there’s often a team, a community, and an urgency to complete it. In contrast, my studio paintings and drawings are solitary, created with much patience and long hours in the studio.
I enjoy the change of pace, bouncing between the two experiences makes me feel balanced. Moving between them is kind of like the duality I experience within myself, the push and pull between chaos and calm, which is also something I’m constantly exploring through my work.
GraffitiStreet
There is a deep stillness in these drawings, and yet they radiate intensity. How do you approach conveying emotion, vulnerability, or presence without relying on movement or narrative?
Sonny Sundancer
I focus on the eyes and the subtleties of expression. With realism, every detail matters; the softness of fur, the tension of muscle, the way light falls across a form. These elements convey emotion without the need for dramatic gestures. The stillness itself becomes powerful and my hope is that it allows viewers to really feel the weight of the animal’s presence.
GraffitiStreet
You often embed contours, patterns and linework into the artworks, whether as an overlaid spray or subtle markings interwoven within the subject. These details are faint but deliberate. What do they mean to you?
Sonny Sundancer
These markings are a part of my exploration of liminal realism. They live in the threshold between the animal and its environment, between the natural and the human worlds. Some reference ancient traditions and the deep cultural connections humans have to the land and its creatures, while others speak to the raw energy of urban spaces through layered textures and spray techniques.
In this way, my work is not just about the animal itself, but the shared, layered story that connects us to it.
Part II: Presence and Liminal Realism
We’ve spoken about process, materials, and rhythm. I’d love now to go deeper into the idea you call Liminal Realism. I’m curious about where that threshold lies in your work, sometimes it feels between nature and abstraction, sometimes between myth and reality, and sometimes even between the natural and the imagined worlds we create today.
GraffitiStreet
Your animals often appear fearless in this in-between space. They hold strength, awareness, even curiosity. Is that an intentional way of showing them as powerful beings, fully present in the liminal, in contrast to humans, who are also moving between nature and the urban, but often unknowingly, caught between worlds without real presence?
Sonny Sundancer
It really depends on the painting, the unique animal, and the emotion I’m trying to express through both the way I paint the animal but also the overall composition of the piece. Often the animals do carry a sense of strength or power, but many times there’s a sadness or vulnerability there too.
I’m always trying to build a connection between humans and the animals I create, by exploring human emotions through the symbolism of nature.
GraffitiStreet
In your painted works, such as the cheetah stepping into abstraction, the animal feels suspended between two worlds, its natural form and something more imagined. We now see this same sense of in-betweenness emerging in your charcoal drawings. Do you see this threshold as part of the larger language of Liminal Realism, a way of showing how animals can exist in both the physical and symbolic realms, and how our own realities often feel layered and shifting too?
Sonny Sundancer
Definitely. It’s a look into the space between what’s real and what’s imagined, where things start to blur.
In the animal pieces, you can still recognise the form, but it’s already moving toward something else. Almost as if the animals are just forming, or breaking away. Or as if you’re glimpsing them through a portal into another world, where it’s not fully in view. It’s why I think my paintings have an otherworldly feel to them, despite the very grounded nature focus.
My abstract works take that same idea further. I’m kind of breaking down the world around the animal and exploring it on its own, almost dissecting the energy or emotion that surrounds it.
Whether it’s figurative or abstract, I’m always interested in what happens in those layered spaces, where one world starts to melt into another.
GraffitiStreet
Many of your Charcoal drawings seem to ask us to sense more than what we see. Do you think of Liminal Realism as creating that zone, a space where myth, memory, and the present coexist, reminding us that humans too are part of nature, even as we drift further from it?
Sonny Sundancer
Yeah, I think that’s definitely part of it. Liminal Realism is about that space where things overlap; the past, the present, myth, memory, the real and the imagined, all of it.
When you’re in nature there is this primal feeling, a connection you get that’s almost coded inside of us from 1000’s of years of evolution, or perhaps something else from another world. That feeling is what I want to try to portray in my work, not just a photograph of nature.
My hope is that when people view the work they’re pulled into a feeling. Whether I’m working with charcoal or paint, or even in pure abstraction, I’m chasing that sense of connection.
GraffitiStreet
When you speak of Liminal Realism, is it the animal's perspective we're entering, our own perspective reflected back, or do you see it as a merging of both?
Sonny Sundancer
I’d say it’s a mix of both. The animal’s gaze can pull you in, but at the same time you’re kind of seeing yourself reflected in it.
Part III: Myth and Contemporary Resonance
GraffitiStreet
Do you see your drawings of the lion and cheetah as contemporary liminal beings in that mythic sense, guardians or messengers at the threshold, carrying memory, myth, and resilience at a time when nature itself feels under threat?
Sonny Sundancer
The lion and cheetah have always carried symbolic weight across different cultures. They represent strength and survival, agility and speed. I think in these drawings, they feel almost as if they’re standing guard. There’s a sense of something ancient trying to hold its ground while everything around it keeps changing.
GraffitiStreet
In your recent murals we often see animals caught between these two worlds, realism dissolving into abstraction. Do you see your drawings as an extension of that same language of transition, or do they awaken us in a different way?
Sonny Sundancer
They’re definitely connected but they have I guess a different feel to them. The murals are loud and bold, they have to grab you in the middle of a busy street. The charcoal drawings are much quieter. They pull you inward. My abstract pieces sit somewhere between the two. They’re more about energy than form, but they still carry that tension and feeling of transition.
I guess all of it is part of one bigger conversation, just told in different voices.
GraffitiStreet
Do you see this act of "holding space between realities" as reflecting our modern condition? where abstraction itself can become a form of erasure, as forests, species, and habitats disappear, and human lives shift into hybrid or digital spaces?
Sonny Sundancer
Yeah, for sure. The world feels more abstract than ever. Things are disappearing, not just wild spaces, but also our sense of connection, community and physical experience. We’re living in all these half-real spaces, both online and off.
In my work, abstraction sometimes represents that sense of loss, but it’s not all negative. I also see it as space for possibility, for rebuilding. The broken textures and fragments can still form something beautiful.
Liminal Realism kind of holds both truths at once; the fading and the potential.
GraffitiStreet
At the same time, could this liminal space also be an awakening, a pause that makes us recognise what is at risk of vanishing?
Sonny Sundancer
We move so fast that we rarely stop to actually look.
My hope is that the liminal space captured in my paintings creates an opportunity for things to slow down, a space for pause and reflection.
Part IV: Perception and Speculation
GraffitiStreet
If it's not insane to think a civilisation millions of years ahead of us could run something indistinguishable from 'real life,' do you ever imagine your animals as presences within that kind of layered reality, beings conscious inside worlds already shifting away from nature as we know it?
Sonny Sundancer
Yeah, it’s wild to think about, but it connects in a weird way to what I’m doing. The animals already exist in a layered reality, part natural, part imagined. Even in a future world that’s completely digital, or maybe especially, I think they’d still hold meaning.
I even once had a whole series of work mapped out focused on imagined ‘future tribes’ where humans went back to more tribal living in harmony with animals, but I ultimately decided on another direction.
GraffitiStreet
Your animals seem fearless at the threshold, strong, curious, fully present. At times it almost feels as though they already know the answer to the paradox we're struggling with: whether nature will endure or be erased, whether we belong or not. Do you see them that way, as beings that carry a kind of knowledge or certainty we've lost?
Sonny Sundancer
Totally. Animals don’t overthink it like we do. They just live in sync with what’s around them. They take in the information from all their senses, and adapt accordingly. That’s real intelligence, in my opinion. It’s not about dominance or control, it’s about harmony. When I draw them, that’s what I’m trying to capture.
My abstract work explores the same thing but from another angle. It’s me trying to find that same sense of balance through movement, rhythm, and flow.
GraffitiStreet
You've described your markings as living in a layered space, between animal and environment, natural and human, ancient traditions and urban energy. Do you think of Liminal Realism itself as that kind of layered state, not just a style, but almost a state of consciousness, where different realities overlap and coexist?
Sonny Sundancer
For me Liminal Realism isn’t just a look or a technique. It’s more like a way of seeing the world. Everything exists in layers (nature, memory, city life, emotion) and those layers are always interacting and having an effect. My work just tries to make that visible. The animals show it in one way, the abstract pieces in another. They’re both about finding harmony inside the chaos. I think of Liminal Realism as a kind of mindset, one that accepts contradiction and sees beauty in the overlap.
GraffitiStreet
When someone encounters one of your hyperrealistic charcoal and carbon drawings for the first time in the gallery, they often can’t believe it is a drawing! What do you hope viewers take away from that experience?
Sonny Sundancer
Ultimately, all I hope for is that the artwork makes them feel something, that it sparks something within in them that’s worth exploring.
What emerges from Sonny Sundancer’s charcoal work is not simply animal portraiture, but a philosophy of thresholds. These drawings reveal animals as more than natural beings… they appear as liminal presences, guardians that stand between worlds: real and imagined, natural and abstract, present and mythic.
Through elemental materials, discipline, and stillness, Sonny’s Liminal Realism offers a way of seeing that feels urgently contemporary. In a time when both humans and animals inhabit hybrid realities, his work asks us to pause and look closer… not only at the creatures themselves, but at the thresholds we all now live within.
These new charcoal drawings are not just portraits of animals. They are portals.
The Two Original Charcoal and Carbon Drawings are Now at GraffitiStreet
We’re honoured to present Nia and Shumba, the original charcoal and carbon drawings that formed the foundation for Sonny’s recent sold-out print release.
Each piece is entirely hand-drawn, intimate, and personal, these beautiful drawings are the originals that hold the spirit and energy of his creative process.
Don’t miss this rare opportunity to own the works that inspired one of Sonny’s most adored editions.
Sonny Sundancer‘s original charcoal and carbon drawings, Nia and Shumba, are now available to view and collect from the gallery or online.