Drewfunk’s evolution

Over the past decade graffiti artist Drewfunk has successfully kept a consistent style while progressing from graffing words and letters to faces and characters, and now into complex configurations of birds and landscapes.

To archive and curate this development Drewfunk has put together a self-published book, Oriental Funk.

“To me it’s a visual documentation of ten years of work, I wanted to capture the flow and evolution of my art,” he says.

Drew travelled from Malaysia to Melbourne aged 21 to study animation and motion graphics at RMIT. Coming from a country where street art was not at all on the radar, he lapped up and adapted into Melbourne’s street culture and evolving style of graffiti.

While Drew feels he has been influenced by Melbourne and its inhabitants, he has certainly made his mark on the cityscape too. His gigantic bodywork across canvas, wood and walls has found a permanent place in many inner-city apartments and bars. Section 8 on Tattersalls Lane and Workshop on Elizabeth St both don feature walls of Drewfunk’s oriental-style floating worlds.

“I like working in front of people, with different mediums and on different surfaces,” explains Drew. His ability to do so is definitely comes through in the exhibition, with spray, ink and paint pieces across paper, canvas, skateboard decks and whatever he could get his hands on along the way.

When viewing his most recent pieces, it’s no surprise that Drew studied motion graphics. The collection has a tone of whimsical travel and a focus on birds, trees and wind. His obsession with movement has been captured with incredible skill in 2D, still images. Similarly, Oriental Funk will use photos and scribbles to show the incredible pace Drew had worked at to achieve so much in such a short period of time.

Drewfunk’s exhibition and book launch is Friday 18 January from 6pm -9pm.
No Vacancy Gallery , QV 34-49 Bell Lane, Melbourne.
Copies of Oriental Funk will be available to buy and get signed. To learn more visit drewfunk.com.