The Big Picture Fest
Newcastle 2-4 October 2020

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.

Inari is an artist based in Sydney, Australia. Her works consist of a romantic liaison with gloomy nostalgia, a harmony between traditional oil portraits and urban graffiti textures.

Her subjects are most likely then not, female with elated themes, subjects whom are connecting to deep wounds. Inari loves to offer her work as a medium of healing.

Inari is one of few female artists working within Australia with advanced aerosol techniques which allows her to seamlessly move from small canvas to large-scale murals, painting soft yet dynamic pieces.

Bronte Naylor (b.1993) is an Australian Visual Artist working across exhibitions, public art, installation, research and community engagement. She recently completed a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Honours) Graduating First Class at University of Southern Queensland, Australia. Collaborations with St+ART India, Sea Walls: Artists for Oceans, First Coat International Art Festival and Big Picture Festival have firmly positioned her as an emerging heavyweight within the international public art landscape.

Mixing photography and digital illustration, Naylor has established a signature collage aesthetic and methodology. She employs a considered and respectful approach to the creation of site specific public art, working across three stages: initial research including documentative photography, the conceptualisation of design and rational and then realised through the act of painting in the public sphere.

Ellie Hannon is an Australian artist who works out of her studio in Newcastle NSW. Traversing the fields of painting, ceramics and mural work in her art practice, Ellie establishes a visual narrative that explores the themes of values, possessions and our relationship with the natural environment, reflecting on how these contribute to our personal identity.

Ellie’s landscapes depict dream like stills of the natural world, inviting the viewer to immerse themselves in spaces of nostalgia, contemplation and mysticism. Vibrant, layered and patch- worked, Ellie’s mark making draws on inspiration from textiles, and other worldly objects, fascinated with how handmade artefacts can be a time capsule for unique narratives, histories and memories.

Since completing her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Newcastle University in 2009 Ellie has spent 3 years living in South East Asia working on community art projects. Returning to Australia in 2014 Ellie has continued to engage with local community art projects whilst also exhibiting annually around Australia, including the Corner Store Gallery in Orange, Newcastle Art Space, and over the last 2 years has exhibited in Melbourne at Backwoods Gallery and Marfa Gallery, and completing a residency at Qbank Gallery Tasmania in early 2019. Engaging with the community through art and being mindful of making art for the masses, Ellie’s practice more recently encompasses working on large scale site specific murals that depict abstracted scenes from nature, appreciating the resilience and ability of plants to regenerate and reclaim an environment after human intervention.

Mitch Revs is a self taught Artist / Illustrator working and living in Newcastle, Australia.

Starting out as an apprentice tattooist, MR made the transition to Murals & Fine Art developing his distinctive colourful / cartoon style. Mitch’s coastal lifestyle is reflected in his artwork, with inspiration drawn from his upbringing revolved around surfing & skating.

Free-lance Art & Design goes hand in hand with Road trips & Adventures.

Be completely free for just a moment. Feel inspired, open your eyes to a world of happiness.

Let yourself be surrounded by colour & creativity.
Right now in this moment you are here.
Be present. Enjoy!

Joel Van Moore is an Australian contemporary artist based in Adelaide, South Australia.

A creative spirit by nature, he has pursued his love of letterforms and abstraction under pseudonym Vans the Omega for almost three decades.

Joel’s work is heavily influenced by ancient scripts, architecture, engineering and pattern making. His works pays homage to the natural world through his use of dynamic body movement, gesture and colour derived by observing the immediate environment.

Moving beyond the spectrum of graffiti, Joel’s current work is a collision of geometric patterns translated into vibrant figurative pieces. These works aim to create inner movement, reflection and the overwhelming sense of beauty when viewed at street level.

Joel’s colourful creations can be found all over the globe and continue to tell local stories which highlight individuals and their stories.

Olas One is a multi-disciplinary artist home to Port Stephens/Newcastle. Since 2008 Olas One has been shaping his graffiti art into conceptual murals, with music, sub-cultures & his local natural environment being his strongest influences.

Olas One is an internationally recognised artist, being active in Europe and the UK since 2012, producing public works predominantly in London & The Netherlands.

Back home in Australia, he has made a strong stamp on the Newcastle scene, where you can find his most iconic & influential graffiti work, & in Port Stephens he shows his environmental consciousness, specifically Anna Bay with his acclaimed ‘Flourish Serenity’ and ‘Whale Migration’ murals.

Tom Henderson is an artist and illustrator working out of Onwards Studio, Newcastle. Bold colours and confident linework underpin his works. Much like the artist himself, the compositions are a bit strange, but definitely interesting and mostly project positivity. His work deserves more attention than this bio. This is trash. The work is good.

My recently created oil paintings are all about ‘individualism’.

Most of the people can associate themselves with one of the trees in the paintings. The trees are performing like actors.

Every person is gifted with at least one special thing in life, so you easily can personify yourself with one of the actors. As the brave one, the cheeky one, or the lucky one.

But also if you don’t take the titles too literally, you can see the solo acting tree as a leading one in a group, a showing one in a circle of viewers or a guiding one in front of a public. In some way, we all are the one. Even if it is for just once.

Jordan Lucky is a Newcastle based mutli-disciplinary creative with over a decade of experience. Growing up in the Port Stephens area, Jordan began painting murals locally but it wasn’t long before his passion saw him boarding planes overseas.

Jordan is now renowned for his rare ability to create both realism and modern-post-graffiti styles, often intertwining into developed scenes and scapes unique to his creation.

Now permanently based in Newcastle, Jordan is locally known for his large scale murals and capacity to create iconic public spaces encompassing flora, fauna and scenes culturally specific to the area.

Newcastle artist and owner of Smack Bang and Red Eye Studios, Sophia Flegg (6_ghosts) has been creating and selling art in Newcastle, Sydney, Melbourne and overseas for the last decade. During this time Flegg has been a finalist in the ‘We get by’ Cooks Hill Art Prize, while also cocreating  and curating art exhibitions in abandoned spaces around Newcastle City. More recently Flegg has been collaborating with The Australian Hip Hop scene to create stage props and album covers. Flegg is heavily influenced by bright, boombastic colours, punk and hip hop culture and the frivolity of youth. Currently Flegg Is working on her own pieces for a solo show, graffitiing her own house and creating murals for public and private spaces.

My name is Jasmine Miikika Craciun. I’m a proud Barkindji, Malyangapa Woman who’s grown up in Newcastle. I have always had a love of art and design and graduated with bachelor of Visual Communication Design at The University of Newcastle in 2018.

During my three years of study I also completed courses in animation, typography and natural history illustration. For the last three years I have been a freelancing graphic designer, Muralist and Multimedia artist.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a family of many diverse backgrounds; growing up alongside my European immigrant grandparents on my fathers side and my Indigenous family on my mothers side.

I believe having this diverse background has given me the opportunity to see, design and create from a different perspective. I pride myself on creating for todays diverse audience and understanding what is needed to communicate with unique groups of people. I believe design should be used to enact change. My work tells a story and is made for everyone.

Design is in everything around us, we might as well use it to change the world.