Author: Brisbane Street Art Festival

Leonie Rhodes is an award-winning Brisbane based artist. Originally from South East London, Leonie had an early sculptural street art practice as a child and was making characters and writing graffiti as a pre-teen. Post-graduation Leonie worked in street-level centres across the boroughs of London creating hundreds of murals and using art as a therapeutic tool with local gang members and their families. Leonie creates public installations often involving hundreds of people as well as sculptures, paintings, sound and performance pieces. Leonie continues to be invited to exhibit internationally and enjoys combining their private studio practice with collaborative and participatory work in the community.

Lisa Tran Kelly is a multidisciplinary artist with a background in Psychology. Drawing from her studies, her artistic practice gravitates towards themes of nature and humanity and attempts to discuss the intersection of art, mental health, and recovery. Her works feature recurring elements and folkloric symbols from her Vietnamese heritage. Her mediums include pencil, acrylics and gold leaf and span across mural work and illustration.

He calls himself Lucks, and that’s the theme he weaves through his art – luck, its symbolism, its indiscriminate randomness. This Brisbane artist channels his observations of a life hard-lived into experiences on the canvas. A former Catholic who still leans on the inculcation of faith and its symbols to influence his acrylic and oil media: a brightly spray-painted silhouette of the Virgin Mary, also representing the voodoo Goddess of Good Fortune, juxtaposes two religions that are in conflict yet share the same message of hope through the strong female archetype. Typical Lucks. For more than 30 years Lucks has employed the spray can to hiss and spit his visual stories into life, first as a street artist and now onto canvas.

Mark P is a Samoan artist and graphic designer that lives in Brisbane. He has an interest in printmaking as well as mural work and enjoys incorporating elements of his Samoan heritage in contemporary ways. Through his artwork, he uncovers a new and fresh look at Samoan motifs and themes.

The duo Medianeras is a duo composed of two argentine women street artists from Rosario, Argentina. Vanesa Galdeano and Analí Chanquía have been creating their works for more than 10 years in the public space. They started producing together in 2014. Since then, they have created MEDIANERAS (in english: sidewalls) and share the same concerns and interests related to urban space and public art. Medianeras painted together in cities such as Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Fortaleza (Brazil), Hollbox (Mexico), London, Wiesbaden (Germany), Covilha (Portugal), Lisbon, Salamanca (Spain), Madrid, Rosario (Argentina), Buenos Aires, Bangkok (Thailand), La Paz (Bolivia), among others.

As a collaboration between the Queensland Poetry Festival and Brisbane Street Art Festival, watch a wall of words emerge as six of Australia’s most exciting and acclaimed poets create an artwork with stunning original poetry and illustrations. Emerging local poets, Anna Jacobson, Anisa Nandaula, Shastra Deo, Raelee Lancaster, Sachem Parkin Owens and Mindy Gill, will be writing their words on a Temporary Wall in the Fortitude Valley Mall, in a blending of poetry and public art.

Spectator Jonze is the moniker of the artist within Deena Lynch. Jonze was born in Yokohama, Japan to a Taiwanese mother and Australian father. She migrated to Australia under interesting and less than certain circumstances when she was 6 years old.
She grew in many different homes and situations – not quite an orphan, not quite belonging anywhere. This put her in touch with a myriad of people and demons coming from disjointed backgrounds themselves or from a position of power. Being in contact with emotional, physical and sexual abuse pushed her into the safety of PTSD where suppression, depression and dissociation became a survival tactic.
Having always carried a creative mind, it was only natural for Jonze to use art and music as an outlet of expression. 2017 was the year she finally came to an age and understanding to tackle her mental health, quirks and trauma. Art became a medium she utilised as a cathartic vessel to uncover the secrets she had even hidden from herself. ‘Spectator Jonze’ is the culmination of self-discovery and healing that has evolved into a people project of passion – bringing mental health to light by depicting the often taboo subject of our individual battles into a colourful, comedic display of imperfectly perfect beauty.

We are Artists, Designers, Illustrators, Photographers, Painters, Teachers and Learners. First and foremost, we’re creative thinkers dedicated to bringing a glass half full attitude to everything we do. From rural Australian silo murals to laneways in Nepal, we strive to bring colour and empowerment to communities everywhere.

Wasp Elder is a socially engaged artist whose aim is to paint murals that communicate varying levels of history and social-poetics with people and in place. He often paints pictures populated by figures and unstressed backgrounds, enticing a sentiment of an obscure journey. His paintings present an evocative combination of solitary figures, collaged scenes, close-ups and obscured features. Through this working process he is able to present often marginalised figures through a dignified representation. Sam also co-ran a DIY multi functional art-space called The Abacus as well as a street art project called Empty Walls. He has collaborated on many projects across the world and continues to use his experiences to learn about people, place and environment.

Xandolino is a Brisbane based Brazilian artist with a background in architecture and graphic design. His art is about responding to the moment, and the environment surrounding him. He uses collections of simple shapes and colours to build patterns. Although the end result is often abstract, people can find unintentionally hidden figures in his pieces. His inspirations include old maps, nature, board games, puzzles, graffiti, electronics, people, music, mechanisms, comic books, history, etc. In his own words: “While I am creating it feels like turning my logical mind off and flowing with the unconscious, with small steps back to check the overall result. It is an intricate relationship between random and systematic.”