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With humble beginnings as an illustrator of children’s books and posters, Tori-jay has grown to become a well-established artist...
Brisbane Airport had one simple question; “how would you portray the laidback lifestyle that Queensland is famous for?” Gus Eagleton, a local street artist, took on that challenge with his mural “Your Point of View”. His artwork now proudly adorns the wall of Brisbane Airport’s Domestic Terminal Carpark.
Gus graduated from the Queensland College of Art with a Bachelor of Fine Art and has over 10 years of painting experience under his brush.
If you’ve driven along Australia’s east coast or through Alice Springs, chances are you’ve already seen his work. His murals are also displayed internationally in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Macau and Bali.
Since a young age, Gus has seen art as a way to express his thoughts and feelings. While art can take many shapes and forms, Gus found himself naturally drawn to painting large-scale murals.
“I enjoy the practice of working towards something larger. Having a goal that I can work towards is always a good feeling.”
When presented with the opportunity to work with Brisbane Airport, Gus wanted to paint an authentic depiction of Brisbane, the way that he sees it.
“Your point of view is a piece capturing a first-person’s perspective of someone living in Brisbane and it’s a genuine look into the Brisbane lifestyle. This piece is a capture of Brisbane from a Brisbane artist who does Brisbane work.”
How has he executed this? By painting a seemingly ordinary, yet memorable activity that will resonate with many locals.
“This piece captures a Queensland share house in the Gabba (short for Woolloongabba) and a couple of friends having a drink on the balcony looking over a Brisbane sunset.”
To create this mural, Gus combined many artistic mediums, including photography, photo editing and digital artistry, while the mural itself largely was executed through aerosol paintwork.
“My work starts off with photography. All the imagery in this piece is captured in Brisbane at various different locations with different people. Then the artwork comes together in a collage-way using lots of different images taken at different times. Once it’s all correlated, I then paint it on a large scale. And then, using painting techniques and aerosol techniques, I bring the artwork to life.”
“Your Point of View” is meant to draw your eye to the subject, a Brisbane woman appearing to stare quizzically at the viewer. Her facial expression is both intriguing & relatable. This piece cleverly mixes surrealism & photo-realism art styles, where a closer look reveals finer details including a checkered pattern filling odd spaces. This pattern features in plenty of Gus’s murals and hints at his work being a “collage”.
“My work, although it seems quite realistic or realism-based, is actually not very real. Each piece is made up of a lot of different imagery, so the photos used in this could be taken at any time of day. This scene is then created into its own thing and by using the checked pattern of Photoshop stylisation, I want the viewer to realise it’s not exactly a realistic depiction of the place, but rather an interpretation.”
Gus often features people as the subject of his art and has chosen to paint two Brisbane locals as the characters in “Your Point of View”.
“I paint people that I know or people that I meet. I just try to paint everyday people – not because of what they do or who they are but people who are interesting. I’m not trying to paint famous people, just genuinely good people.”
While this piece stretches to height of 5 meters, Gus’s artwork can be seen on building walls that stand over 10 metres tall. This meant utilizing the full height of the carpark wall was no problem for Gus.
“This piece was about two weeks work… and a scissor lift… (to complete). It was a bit of a long process with a lot of wind and different weather which made it a bit of a tricky one.”
For travellers walking along Level 1 of the Domestic Terminal car park outside the rental car area, Gus hopes his mural is a source of inspiration for them.
“When people see this piece, I hope they stop to have a look and can get a glimpse of what it is to be someone who lives in Brisbane. I hope they are inspired by it.”
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