Author: Brisbane Street Art Festival

Jasmine Crisp is a painter and muralist born and based in Adelaide, South Australia. Her characteristic yet naturalist practice features figures from her lived experiences to form localised genre paintings of the familiar and absurd. Crisps often maximalist scenes are built upon personal narratives, which are crafted in reference to past traditions of portraiture. Long established symbols within painting are presented in harmony with the familiarity of the present to form playful reimagined landscapes of the felt human experience. This unique painting language directly influences her public art practice in the form of brush painted large scale murals. She has produced multiple large scale public murals in Adelaide, SA and interstate inclusive of Brisbane Street Art, Wonderwalls and SANAA festival murals.

Working with and being mentored by Dr. Tamsin Kerr, in a one year Arts Residency at Cooroora Institute I have created portraits as the re-connection strings of knowledge have been re-kindled. Layers of research about people, families, stories, building, loss and grief have given me an understanding of the fortitude that these women of the past have needed, to survive and thrive.

Connection to place has developed alongside the growing family knowledge as well. What the Women before have done to allow for contemporary connection to places that I find myself in. Building relationships with Traditional Owners, Elders, Aunties and Uncles and listening to the teachings that have been shared. Connecting with plants and places that people have been or still are.

I’m a dedicated Artist and Architectural Technician with experience in masterplanning, documentation and 3D modelling. My cultural work sits beside my professional experience as an Architectural Technician. I have several years’ experience in the architectural industry covering a range of project types, though more recently, main focus has been large scale health projects. I am Maiawali, Karuwali and Pitta-Pitta and Gomeroi. I feel there is a much-needed importance of representing my people in the built environment and I seek opportunities that allow for awareness and the promotion of the rich culture that was/still is here, as it needs to be remembered and restored to the best of our collective ability. Im looking to combine my art, my culture and my technical expertise to deliver a unique perspective to each and every project.

YoungEarlGrey is Rhea Isaacs, an artist/illustrator from Sydney, Australia. She studied Illustration at NMIT in Melbourne before completing a degree of Fine Arts at Sydney College of the Arts with Honours in 2014, and has been published internationally, collaborated with artists all over the world and spreads her work across a music – fashion – editorial hybrid that doesn’t yet have a name but scientists hope to discover it by 2021 (editor’s note: this was written before the pandemic, and as such, it is now a creative choice to leave it as is). Her work is a mix of elements from her childhood, influences from music (anything from big band to AOR and back again), and a lifelong love affair with pop culture. Her number one heroes include Keith Haring, Eddie Van Halen (She once saw him live and cried during his Eruption/Cathedrals solo), Janet Jackson and mid-century illustrators for their tireless efforts of sticking to a CMYK palette.

I am a 35-year-old artist, illustrator and street artist. Now I am living and working in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. I use original detailed technique and I would call my style dotwork, pointillism, stippling. I draw both black-and-white and colour graphics, street art, and illustrations. I have been painting for more than 10 years. I started with classic graffiti. The main rule that I follow in my work is honesty and awareness that I am responsible before the audience. I believe that creative work is an extremely important part of human life, so it should be treated with care and intelligence. All my pictures are a reflection of my inner world, my emotions, my life position and principles. I draw only what I sincerely believe in and find worth doing, even if it is not popular or not that common to say. Art has a strong influence on people, and the way it is depends on the authors and on those people who promote the objects of art to the public. Before creating a new work, I carefully think through the idea, the message and the artistic means by which I will get my point across. In my art, I always bring up some issues relevant both for modern society and for an individual. For this end, I mostly use well-known objects and give them a non-standard form and a symbolic meaning. Furthermore, I am trying to form and maintain my signature style in every work. To enhance the effect of my art pieces, I use a large format and carefully detail each work. In this case, a person is more likely to stay at work examining it and appreciating how much time and effort was invested in the picture. In addition, creating a new job, I always strive to make it better and more interesting than the previous one, thus developing my skills in the process of drawing. I am represented as an illustrator by IllustrationZone Agency. Work with LAVAZZA, AFAR Media, Entertainment Weekly, Vista Jet, Reichl und Partner Werbeagentur GmbH, Upfest, THEVINUM, We are Talents, Seleuss chocolate and others. Exhibitions and festivals: Supernova | Basel, Switzerland, 2022 Art Market | Budapest, Hungary, 2021 LUSTR, illustration festival | Prague, Czech Republic, 2021 Mesto Project, street art festival | Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, 2021 AY, exhibition, Street Art Museum | Saint Petersburg, Russia, 2021 Secretly, Savitsky gallery | Mink, Belarus, 2020 Das Ministerium Exhibition | Berlin, Germany, 2019 THIS IS NOT A ZOO | Tenerife, Spain, 2019 Art in Haut Bugey | Oyonnax, France, 2019 TOWARD 2030 | Torino, Italy, 2019 Hit and Run | Ljusdal, Sweden, 2019 Upfest 2018 | Bristol, UK, 2018 Fomenar Prize 2017 | Barcelona, Spain, 2017 (jury prize) Société du Salon d’automne | Minsk, Belarus, 2017 Concorso per illustratori Tapirulan, XII edizione | Cremona, Italy, 2016 Urban Myths street art festival | Minsk, Belarus, 2016 Artdiario | Rome, Italy, 2015

Fintan Magee is a Sydney based social realist painter, specializing in large-scale murals. Born in 1985 in Lismore, New South Wales, to an architect mother and father who was a sculptor, he started drawing at a young age. His earlier large-scale paintings often inhabited the isolated, abandoned and broken corners of the city, and today are found all over the world including in London, Vienna, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta, Buenos Aires, Copenhagen, Moscow, Rome, Jordan, and Dublin amongst others. Magee’s practice is informed by a profound interest in political murals, inspired by exposure at a young age to those of his Father’s native Northern Ireland. This is reflected in the socialist nature of his public artworks, which combine journalistic elements with public art. Magee’s work is driven by his recognition of the power of murals to communicate political and social viewpoints and thus divide or unite communities. Drawing from personal experience and the mundane, his figurative paintings are deeply integrated with the urban environment and explore themes of diversity, migration and transition, waste and consumption, loss, and the environment. His works exude an inherent sentimentality and softness influenced by children’s books and the Low Brow art movement. In recent years, Magee has solidified his position as one of Australia’s leading public artists and has traveled extensively, completing projects in countries across the world. Some of the most recent project of note include his work in a refugee camp in Jordan in 2017; and his solo exhibition ‘Waves’ at Mathgoth Gallery in Paris. In 2016, his solo exhibition ‘Water World’, at Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne; and a series of works on abandoned silos in Patchewollock, Victoria and both murals and a gallery installation for Tauranga Art Gallery, NZ, for the Paradox Festival. He is presently preparing for a solo exhibition in Los Angeles. Magee has been featured in the Sydney Morning Herald, Juxtapoz Magazine, ABC News , The Australian, The Urban Contemporary Art Guide (2014, 2015), Street Art Australia (Lou Chamberlain), Graffiti Art (FR) Home & Design : Trends Magazine, Surface (Soren Solker) (DK), amongst others.

Inventura is a multidisciplinary studio, located in the imagination of Lucas Amaral, 35 years old. Designer, illustrator, muralist and sculptor. He was born in Belo Horizonte / Brazil, he has been for a while in Germany, Spain and currently lives in Australia. The project started as a screen printing workshop in Brazil, but it was never intended to be limited to a single technique or location. The idea is to keep moving, experimenting, learning and creating in different media and formats. He’s interested in manual and experimental processes in order to create works that can be interpreted in multiple ways by the viewer. For the murals there is a search for impact, without losing the harmony and balance of shapes and colors. In general, the works portray an imaginary universe but are always inspired by reality.

Stu is an oil painter & businessman, currently residing in Brisbane. His work is predominantly ocean inspired, and could be described as magical realism. He believes that you should stay hydrated, and never say no to champagne.

Boneta-Marie Mabo, Meriam, Munbarra & Nywaigi, a proud Aboriginal, Torres Strait and Southsea Islander , a prison abolitionist and artist. In 2017 she collaborated with the Royal Australian Mint in the design of a circulating commemorative 50c coin. In 2016 she was the inaugural artist-in-residence for the State Library of Queensland’s kuril dhagun Indigenous centre, in 2014 she won People’s Choice award in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Telstra Art Award. Boneta-Marie is the State Youth Programs Manager at Sisters Inside where she has work for twelve years. Sisters Inside is an independent community organisation, which exists to advocate for the human rights of women and girls in the criminal justice system. Boneta-Marie’s most recent body of work Colonial Seeds combines abolition and art, the history of girls incarceration since the colonisation of so called ‘Australia’ which will continue to be the focus of her art practice.

In my work I am creating compressed versions of the australian environment where indigenous species are competing for space between the introduced flora and fauna. I start with research and images of the particular species and then assemble my palette. I am inspired by colour combination and patterns that I see in everyday life, in nature and design. My process is playing with patterns, colour and negative space to see what emerges and take risks, do something I haven’t done before. Behind the playfulness is the question, can there eventually be a harmonious balance between the diifferent species?