Like a dingo

by hotelhotelblog

Trevor Turbo Brown has been on the up and up ever since he started painting about ten years ago. His work is currently being shown at the Bunjilaka Gallery in Melbourne, he has received the prestigious Deadly Art Award, and his work graces the latest issue of the Artmarket Report Magazine. He has done pretty freaking well to say the least.

There are two stories that can be told about Turbo. The first is a heart breaking one of being from the stolen generation, homelessness, of time spent in prison, mental health problems and loneliness. Its in this story that Trevor gets his nickname ‘Turbo’ whilst break dancing on Flinders Street in Melbourne (where he pushed it to pop it, rocked it to lock it, broke it to make it).

To tell the second story you need to know about the first story, because it was whilst living rough in his hometown of Mildura (Turbo is a Latje Latje man) that he compounded his connection with the animals. He says they saved his life, in the sense that they saved him from loneliness by being his friends and keeping him company. His totems are the yellow and red tail cockatoo, the eagle and the dingo. It is still in the company of his friends that Turbo has created his own quirky visual language in burnt orange and bark brown on a backdrop of cooling blues and bush greens.

Turbo’s work is the product of an innate talent that he uses to switch off from his everyday and his past, and tells a third story that tells of animals, their preciousness, and the parallels between their looming extinction and the extinction of Aboriginal languages and culture. It’s a beautiful read if you can go and check it out. If you can’t make it to Melbourne to check out his current exhibition at Bunjilaka (and I would also suggest a side trip to Hungry Birds where some more of his art is being shown) we have a couple of his serigraphic prints waiting to flock to Hotel Hotel’s walls, and are hoping to get our grubby hands on one of his linens. My vote is for his ‘Summer Birds, Beautiful Day’.

Some say you are what you love and I can’t shake the image of Trevor painting as his manager, Nick Kreisler, says ‘al fresco’ (he likes the feeling of the sun on his skin) like a lizard, breaking out in dance like a crested pigeon, his mad hair sticking up like a cockatoo, looking content with his toothy smile like a dingo.

LAST MAN STANDING

(pictures courtesy of Artworld.tv, © Trevor Turbo Brown/Artworld.tv)