Brolga’s style of art is definitely eye-catching and has already caught the attention of famous brands such as Nike, Apple, Lego, YouTube Kids, and Jaguar.
So, to learn more about the artist, we asked Brolga to share about his artistic journey. He wrote: “When I was a kid growing up in Australia, I always wanted to be a musician or visual artist when I grew up, but it was more of a far-off dream rather than something that could actually happen for me. It took a backpacking trip to New York in my mid-twenties to finally try some casual illustration classes. They felt so natural that from there, I started to connect the dots to finally push the dream towards a reality.”
Though Brolga admits that this art series of drawing illustrations into cityscapes is not anything new, his vivid illustrations add a unique charm that we have not seen before.
“There’s been a line of illustrators that have done this before me; I definitely wasn’t the first one. For instance, Kaws used to paint characters over bus stop advertisements in New York. Christoph Niemann and Hattie Stewart were doing their own form of this prior to my endeavors too. In the past year or two, this style of illustration has really started trending again, and you’ll see it everywhere.”
Brooklyn has a vibrant and diverse artistic community. We asked how living in this creative hub influenced the artist’s work.
“I doubt that I ever would have become an artist if I hadn’t moved to Brooklyn. As I mentioned earlier, it’s where my journey began to become an actual artist, and it’s there that I committed fully to it.
The street art movement was in full swing at that time (around 2015). That movement inspired me to put up artwork on the street anonymously, and the reason why I began calling myself Brolga. I liked the fact that I could work anonymously under a pseudonym and be released from any direct judgment of the artwork. It felt like total freedom. I used to make one-off life-sized characters that I would wheat-paste around Brooklyn.
From there, I began painting murals and also started working within illustration,” explained Brolga.
The characters in Brolga’s art seem to have distinct personalities and stories. Therefore, we were wondering how the artist develops these characters, and if they reflect any aspects of his own personality or experiences.
Brolga replied: “My characters have been picked up along the years like hitchhikers. They came to me at a point in time, and if I like them, they get repeated and developed. I’m really fascinated with character design and the power behind a character. For instance, characters like Miffy are beloved by people all over the world and become almost a real entity. I find examples like this super inspiring, observing the emotional power that a character can have.”
The use of color in Brolga’s illustrations is striking and plays a crucial role in bringing his characters to life. We asked the artist to discuss his creative process when choosing colors and how color contributes to the overall narrative of his artwork.
“I love working with color, and all my color choices come completely by feel rather than anything more technical than that,” wrote Brolga.
And lastly, the artist added: “Thanks so much for reading this!”
