Author: Brisbane Street Art Festival

Reuben Stocks aka Dank Zappa is an established graffiti artist and an emerging fine artist. His background is in pen and spraycan skills. His inspiration comes from the street, global graffiti culture, underground music and the influence of the fine art world in childhood. His profound reflective inner self and the unknown realities of our outer multiverses are tangible in his work. His ability to visually distill that which is organic and universal together with street culture Phunk into a singular current of production is completely mesmerising.

Perfecting his craft since 1997, Joos ‘DOES’ van Barneveld is a multidisciplinary international artist recognised for his well balanced colour schemes, clean style and eye for detail. Taking root in graffiti art, traditional letterform is DOES’s primary love. He maintains that different hand styles betray elements of their owners’ emotional landscapes, putting personality traits subconsciously on display. Using the letters D, O, E and S as a foundation, he continues to elevate these etchings to new heights. Through an explosion of colour and shape, letters assume narrative.

Elysha Rei is a Japanese-Australian visual artist whose work draws upon her mixed heritage and lived experiences between places, cultures and communities. Her works are created from personal and historical archives which embed narrative and symbolism within a Japanese design aesthetic. Works include portraits, patterns and paper cutting which have been translated into large-scale murals and installation commissions. Since completing a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 2008, Rei has created and exhibited work, curated exhibitions and managed cultural spaces across Australia, Japan, Thailand, New Zealand and the US.

In the studio, Gus Eagleton paints with oils on canvas to create photo-realistic yet surreal interpretations of the reality and beauty of our urban landscape. On the street, he explores the individual in nature, juxtaposed against the concrete city.

Shaun Lee, Gwarkabah (Saltwater man) also known by his artist name, Hafleg, is a Larrakia, Wardaman and Karajarri contemporary freelance artist born and raised in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. Shaun has been painting from a very young age learning from his large artistic family. He specialises in murals and logos using traditional and contemporary designs and especially enjoys doing one off pieces of art.

Irok was an accomplished artist from a young age growing up in the western suburbs of Brisbane with a graffiti and street art background. This introduced the artist to experimenting with all types of mediums outside of just spray paint. His work now has a strong, confident message and representation of his life and the surroundings around all of us seen through his eyes and presented to others in a very real, moving and visceral fashion with his unique use of brush and acrylic house paint. Originally the house paint watered down to save money, but this slowly became part of the the tell tale signs of the free flowing slightly chaotic yet organic splatters and drips that are generally outside the usual portrait artists focus on fine detail that became his signature work he is known for today. Irok sees his work as being progressive and versatile.

British born artist Hayley Welsh, has established herself as one of the newest creatives in the street art scene, creating her whimsical artworks across the globe. Quoted by Jetstar Magazine as being one of the ‘Top Ten Street Artists You Should Know By Now’ and having exhibited internationally in Berlin, London and New York, she is renown for her surreal, wide-eyed characters, reminding us all to ‘Listen To Your Little Voice’. There is something quite fantastical and a little bit dark lurking in Hayley’s work. Utilising various surfaces from walls to found objects as her canvas, she reveals curious creatures, so cute they can’t be trusted. With their ominous softness, Hayley explores inner voices of self doubt and fear, weaving a poignant narrative into every piece – a message for each person to reflect on in the moment. Hayley’s unique style displays a technical approach, mixed with nostalgia and humour. Surface images that might otherwise seem inviting, have an other-wordly quality that take them places beyond the image in front of us. Her playful aura eludes to a childlike innocence, yet this is juxtaposed with darker undertones of the unknown and abyss.

Jak Rapmund had spent years as a self-taught artist, before entering into a Bachelor of Fine Arts at VCA in 2018. He has worked across many mediums, including drawing, murals, tattooing, printmaking and painting, and while Rapmund’s focus has been predominantly on tattooing since 2012, it is now shifting back towards mural work and painting, to develop a more focused practice that is wholly his own.