Street Art Flavour

5 layers on MDF Board
120 x 90cm

Street Art Flavour is a commentary on what street art and mural painting has become, a kind of ‘flavour enhancer’ for the everyday, bland urban wall. The idea came to me when I visited London a few years ago; I was considering the difference in popularity of stencil culture over there as opposed to here in Melbourne. For me, this piece really encapsulates the theme I had in mind for my show. I liken Street Art to a pack of MSG/flavouring, because everyone likes it but they don’t really think about what it’s doing to them, where it comes from and if its bad for you- in a parallel, we don’t really consider where the culture of street art stems from, it’s history, graffiti roots or the fact that it’s become a multi million dollar industry.

Street Art Warrior

5 layers on MDF Board
72 x 54cm

This work is about the need a lot of artists have to ‘fight for wall space’ or fight for certain high trafficked areas or ‘unreachable’ spots from the ground. Similarly to ‘Street Art Flavour’, its related to the current culture of street art, but also the ingenious methods the artists employ to achieve these great works, strapping brushes to a pole, using a broom stick to paint, or climbing onto things in order to reach greater heights... Creating their own “tools’ as it were.

It’s that cross between the arcane, cave man fight for territory, with the hatchet representative as the weapon, to be the best ‘warrior’ and as a yardstick for measuring an artists talent, depending on ‘who’s won the best walls’.

Rothko Buff

5 layers on MDF Board
50cm x 50cm

This work came about when I was contemplating the ‘safe guarding’ of certain street art works and how some works are considered to be more ephemeral that others. There’s a certain amount of clarity that’s needed to create work for the street, an acceptance of no longer owning the work once it’s up and relinquishing the sentimental hold we might have on what we create.

And then there’s the buff, or as I like to call it, the ‘art critic’. Artists love fighting the buff, the grey mass that seems to take over every wall, and technically provide a blank canvas for the next up and coming artist. The buff is the house that always wins, but there can be a beauty to the grey and the constant shift of time and work that goes up till the next coat of buff.

Toy Hate

5 layers on MDF Board
92cm x 82.5cm

“I’m living’ in that 21st century, doing something mean to it. Do it better than anybody you ever seen do it, screams from the haters, got a nice ring to it. I guess every superhero needs his theme music” - Kanye

When everybody’s talking about their feelings rather than doing something about them, the toy pistol came to me as a still life version of all the haters in our lives, be it online trolls or otherwise, especially the ones whose bark is louder than their bite. I always try to remember, there’s only so many people who’s opinion actually matters, but we spend so much time worrying about the opinions of people that we actually shouldn’t give two shits about.

I thought the best way to represent this work would be in a ‘pop art’ formation, not only because of the mass manufactured quality to the subject matter but also to reference the OG Andy Warhol’s screen print of a revolver, which was Andy’s commentary on the commercialisation of violence in society. I mimicked this work and did so in the pop art style because I was trying to show how society has changed in a lot of ways to this new online, cheaper, much more brittle form of violence, I feel more and more like we all live in glass houses, casting stones constantly without much thought.

Deflated Ego

5 layers on MDF Board
92cm x 92cm

This work, maybe even more than the rest, speaks for itself. Other than a longing to create this piece on a textural level, ‘Deflated Ego’ stems from basketball culture, the idea of being a ‘baller’ or a bad-ass, and really a double entendre of people who are full of air, or themselves.

My representation of the deflated basketball is meant to mimic the cultural attitude linked to being taken down a notch and the way it feels to have someone take the wind out of your sails. This work explores the low side to the ego more than any of the other works, but also the most sensitive side, it’s the days where we lack inspiration, the ones we try not to talk about when we compare ourselves to how everyone else is doing. The basketball has great potential though, it has a toughness that has the ability to be patched, re-inflated and bounce to greater heights.

Keezy Boost

5 layers on MDF Board
122 x 74cm

To this day, I still remember when my dad bought me my first pair of Shaqnosis Reeboks, I felt like the coolest kid in the whole world every single day that I wore them.

The Keezy Boost explores this admiration of sneakers and shoes and the things that make them coveted, with Yeezys and retro Jordans becoming collectables that sit on shelves and in drawers more than they’re being worn and that also triple in price on the resale market. I’ve painted in these vans for years and as they reached their last legs I was sad to see them go, being one of my favourite pairs of shoes over the years and also being easy to come by. To this day I still love sneakers and collect them but I think the play on ‘real’ vs. ‘fake’ sneakers and the price tags have played an interesting part in the market which I never thought would exist, but has made me question my obsession more than ever. There is a parallel with this ‘collector’ mentality that also applies in the art world, even with sneakers designed by artists now, or designed to look like an artist has painted in them, I wanted to take an ironic outlook on this and immortalise my favourite shitty pair of painting shoes, who knows, they could be worth a mint one day. One of the reasons I love making art is that it can bring value to the thing that you paint on, a generic canvas costs a set price, but the thing you put on it, the thing that makes it exceptional and not just a blank canvas is the thing that turns it from a regular object, to a coveted, valued treasure.

Prolapse

6 layers on MDF Board
120cm x 90cm

This work has almost become my ‘I decided to go back to university to study and this is what my life looks like now’ self portrait. It’s about being overworked, and struggling to find a balance that is healthy and productive and doesn’t burn you out. I get excited to work on projects and new works so much that it can be hard to schedule in breaks, even when I need them. When I found out what a prolapse was, my first reaction was, that that shouldn’t be something that can actually exist or happen, it’s just too graphic and painful to even imagine, but I likened it to burning out and partying too hard in the way of an exploded celebratory popper.

Keys To the City

5 layers on MDF Board
100.5 x 45cm

Technically a family air-loom, I’ve always loved these old tools that my grandfather used to have stored in his shed and I’m glad I managed to inherit some of them. I made this piece ‘Keys to the City’, not just because I liked the appearance of the bolt cutters (which is why I painted a variation of the stencil using real rust effect paint to mimick their textur and age), but because they encapsulate the idea; that they allow you to get into places which are usually restricted, and of opening doors that may have previously been closed, changing things to work in your favour.

The bolt cutters are really a monument to live by, to never find your self locked behind doors or missed opportunities.

Cut Your Lunch

5 layers on MDF Board
41 x 28cm

This work is a fairly straight forward representation of someone ‘cutting your lunch’ or ‘eating half your sandwich’, taking advantage and leaving you half the remains of something you used to have. I guess you could say that it explores the goals and ideals that we always seem to keep raising and holding out of our own reach, without always recognising the things we do, have or have achieved to date. It can turn into something we end up doing to ourselves, not just something someone else can do to us.

Sell Out

5 layers on MDF Board
50 x 50cm

I had this idea of ‘sales’ and the satisfaction people get from finding a bargain, when artwork isn’t really a necessity, it’s a luxury that people can technically afford to live without, so what is it that makes a work worth the money you spend on it? I’ve thought a lot about the cost of art, and the fact that an artwork is really only worth what someone’s willing to pay for it, and that that comes down to the reasons someone would buy it, whether it’s because the work is from a famous artist and is actually an investment, or if they purchase it because it’s affordable and fills a space on their wall, or because they love it and they want to look at it and see it every single day.

Artworks are a commodity and a lot of the time an artists success is weighed against whether they have a ‘sell out show’, but also the negative connotations of doing too well, and selling too much, and that delicate balance of being commercially viable but not becoming a ‘sell out’.

Winter Champions, Player Award

5 layers on MDF Board
23.5 x 45cm

I usually shy away from topics that are ‘controversial’ when it comes to my work, but more and more lately I’ve struggled to fight this urge, I don’t know if it’s just something that comes with age, or exasperation of how slow things seem to change over time, especially when it comes to women’s rights and how far behind we seem to be some days.

I painted this piece as a trophy piece, it goes out to all the ladies, who take care of themselves first before anything else. Winter is here, and sisters have to do it for themselves sometimes. The winter champion award goes to you.

Silver Surfer / California Blades

5 layers on Cutting Mat, box framed, filled with stencil offcuts
63.1 x 94cm

This is the first cutting mat I bought myself, I’ve cut a lot of my murals and studio works on them and see it as a representation of my ‘mark making’; all the works I’ve ever created have (at least partially) been cut into this mat, and lie together in their lines. I really liked that idea that they are all encapsulated in this board, that I’ve ‘left my mark on it’.

Being a gamer from way back in the day, I thought of California Games on the Original Nintendo Entertainment System and imagined my works being scored with points, the way they do in the surfing component of the game, I imagine this little guy riding around carving up work, leaving confetti in his wake.

Somehow, just like those old games, this mat has now become redundant, old and worn out from over use but I still wanted to let it have it’s day; even if only for nostalgia sake.

I love art and the interconnectedness it allows people of all walks of life to experience, whether the artwork in question is good or bad, its ultimately inclusive. I’ve had the privilege to see a lot of art from around the world. To this day my favourite work in an exhibition was something I saw at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France. There was a corner of the gallery set up with video games designed by the artist and it had this pull quote on the wall:

“Well, when I was 4, my dad bought a trusty Xbox. You know, the first, ruggedy one from 2001. We had tons and tons and tons of fun playing all kinds of games together - until he died, when I was just 6. I couldn’t touch that console for 10 years. But once I did, I noticed something. We used to play a racing game, Rally Sports Challenge, actually pretty awesome for the time it came. And once I started meddling around, I found a GHOST. Literally. You know, when a time race happens, the fastest lap so far gets recorded as a ghost driver? Yep, You guessed it - his ghost still rolls around the track today. And so I played and played and played until I was almost able to beat the ghost. Until one day I got ahead of it, I surpassed it, and...I stopped, right in front of the finish line, just to ensure I wouldn’t delete it. Bliss.

-Youtube Comment 00WARTHERAPY00, May 2014

That shit beats the Mona Lisa, for me. Anyday.