Stormie Mills

Last updated

Stormie Mills
Stormie Mills (cropped).jpg
Mills in 2015
Born1969 (age 5455)
NationalityAustralian
Style Street art
SpouseMelissa Lekias (married 2007–present)
Website stormiemills.com

Stormie Mills (born 1969) is a street/visual artist operating out of Perth, Western Australia. [1] Mills' portfolio has been published in two books, Proximamente (2008) and Dwi Yma (2013).

Contents

Life and career

Mills was born in 1969 in Colwyn Bay, a coastal town in northern Wales, and moved with his brothers Barnaby and Oliver and his parents Gani and Christopher to Perth, Western Australia when he was three. [2] In 1984 Mills discovered spray-paint and painting in the streets, [3] [4] and at 16 years of age he travelled back to Wales to live with his grandmother before visiting New York in 1986. [2] During that time he also travelled to London.

When I went to New York in 1986, I met a bunch of guys that were subway painters and I saw the work of Jenny Holzer and John Fekner. These people were the godfathers of street art. They had a movement, and I was so impressed by them that it certainly changed the way I was thinking and steered my work into another direction.

Stormie Mills [5]

Mills returned to Perth just before his 21st birthday. [2] In 1999 he held his first solo exhibition in Perth at Jacksue Gallery. [6]

In 2002 he achieved a Commendation Award in the "City of Perth Invitational Art Award". [7] He has been commissioned to create works in Los Angeles and London and in 2002 was invited to create large scale murals across Greece in preparation for the Olympics [8] achieving international acclaim for his work. [4] [7]

In 2003 he was invited to produce a limited edition toy, Toy2R, which was retailed in Tokyo and New York. [7] He was also invited to produce work for a group show at the Adicolor Studios in Berlin and was invited to participate in group shows in Tokyo and Taiwan with the Seventh Letter in October 2006.

In October 2004 Mills was invited to participate in a show in London to launch the Thames and Hudson publication, Graffiti World, where he was invited as a guest speaker at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. [7]

In 2009, together with Timid, Remi/Rough, System, Juice 126, Derm and Burial, Mills travelled to the west coast of Scotland to transform an abandoned village, [4] [9] Polphail near Portavadie. Over four days the artists decorated the grey walls of the village. A short film, The Ghost Village, was made documenting the project and was screened at the London Film Festival. [4] [9] In the same year his work was exhibited as part of Installation 5, presented by SCION LA at the annual Art Basel exhibition in Miami Beach, Florida, where he has been invited back twice.

The year 2012 saw Mills become the first Australian artist to create a street art suite at the Art Series Hotel Group's Cullen Hotel in Prahran Melbourne, joining international practitioners D*Face, Swoon and Blek le Rat. [10] Mills also presented at the agIdeas conference and in 2015 was subsequently invited by Conference Creator Ken Cato to be one of 25 artists to create an artwork to celebrate the conference's 25-year history. [11]

In July 2013 Mills was invited to paint works for Art Whino's Richmond Mural Project in Virginia, USA. Mills contributed a total of nine murals. [12] The same year he created a series of four metre tall pink bunny figurines for the annual Brisbane Festival, [13] which were reimagined by Mills the following year for the 2014 Brisbane Festival. [14] In 2015 the Bunnies appeared as part of the Perth Fringe Festival making appearances in and around the City, as well as at the international Sculptures By The Sea exhibition where Mills was awarded the People’s Choice Prize as voted by the public. [15]

In 2014 and 2015 Mills painted large scale murals for the Re.Discover project in Bunbury as well as Form's #Public Street Art Festival, speaking at the inaugural #Public Symposium.

Personal life

In 2007 Mills married Melissa Lekias, a public relations professional, in Oaxaca, Mexico. [16] [17] In 2012, the couple purchased the Iwan Iwanoff-designed Marsala House for A$2.2 million. [18] In 2021, they bought Iwanoff's Golowin House for $3.2 million and sold Marsala House. [19]

Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Street art</span> Art that is public and temporary in public spaces

Street art is visual art created in public locations for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti" and guerrilla art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pittsburgh Cultural Trust</span>

The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust (PCT) is an American, nonprofit, arts organization that was formed in 1984 to promote economic and cultural development in Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The "Trust" has focused its work on a fourteen-square block section known as the Cultural District, which encompasses numerous entertainment and cultural venues, restaurants, and residential buildings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Stanislaus Ostoja-Kotkowski</span>

Joseph Stanislaus Ostoja-Kotkowski AM, FRSA was best known for his ground-breaking work in chromasonics, laser kinetics and 'sound and image' productions. He earned recognition in Australia and overseas for his pioneering work in laser sound and image technology. His work included painting, photography, film-making, theatre design, fabric design, murals, kinetic and static sculpture, stained glass, vitreous enamel murals, op-collages, computer graphics, and laser art. Ostoja flourished between 1940 and 1994.

Mike Parr is an Australian performance artist and printmaker and Painter. Parr's works have been exhibited in Australia and internationally, including in Brazil, Cuba, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the United States.

Robert Litchfield Juniper, AM was an Australian artist, art teacher, illustrator, painter, printmaker and sculptor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vhils</span> Portuguese graffiti and street artist

Vhils is the tag name of Portuguese graffiti and street artist Alexandre Manuel Dias Farto.

Macquarie Galleries was a Sydney private art gallery established in 1925 by John Henry Young and Basil Burdett. It was located at "Strathkyle", 19 Bligh Street Sydney then moved to 40 King Street in 1945. From 1991 to 1993 it was located at 83–85 McLachlan Avenue, Rushcutters Bay. It is currently located at 585 Grosvenor Place, Sydney. There are also associated Macquarie Galleries in Canberra and Perth.

Australian feminist art timeline lists exhibitions, artists, artworks and milestones that have contributed to discussion and development of feminist art in Australia. The timeline focuses on the impact of feminism on Australian contemporary art. It was initiated by Daine Singer for The View From Here: 19 Perspectives on Feminism, an exhibition and publishing project held at West Space as part of the 2010 Next Wave Festival.

Iwan Iwanoff also known as Iwan Nickolow and Iwan Nickoloff Iwanoff, born in Kyustendil, Bulgaria and died in Perth, Western Australia, was an architect known for working in the Brutalist style. Iwan Iwanoff studied architecture in Europe before arriving in Perth to work as an architect. He became renowned for his design characteristic which is mainly working with concrete blocks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sergio Redegalli</span>

Sergio Redegalli is an Australian glass artist specialising in glass sculptures. He is an owner of the Cydonia Glass Studio located in Newtown, New South Wales. Redegalli graduated from Sydney College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Arts Glass in 1984 and a Graduate Diploma – Glass Visual Arts in 1988. Whilst attending college, Redegalli has claimed, he was the subject of victimisation at the hands of "man hating lesbians". His glass sculpture Cascade was commissioned for the World Expo in Brisbane in 1988. This massive 12 ton sculpture in the shape of a cascading wave is on display in Adelaide Botanic Garden, Adelaide. He is currently the President of the Chamber of Commerce, at Tocumwal in the Riverina region of New South Wales.

Kaldor Public Art Projects is an Australian non-profit arts organisation established in 1969 by John Kaldor. The organisation collaborates with international artists to create site-specific art projects in public spaces in Australia.

Gaia is an American street artist who has received significant museum showings and critical recognition. Based in Baltimore, he has created large-scale murals worldwide to engage the community where he works in a dialogue by using historical and sociological references to these neighborhoods. Besides continuing to do commissions for private and corporate clients, Gaia is teaching two classes a semester- Drawing and Professional Development at his alma mater MICA.

Piers Maxwell Dudley-Bateman was an Australian landscape painter. He was a member of The Antipodeans, a group of Melbourne painters that also included Arthur Boyd, David Boyd, Charles Blackman, John Brack, Robert Dickerson, John Perceval and Clifton Pugh. He taught as a Professor for painting at the Shanghai Institute of Visual Art under Fudan University in Shanghai, China.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ROA (artist)</span>

ROA is a graffiti and street artist from Ghent, Belgium. He has created works on the streets of cities across Europe, the United States, Australia, Asia, New Zealand and Africa. ROA generally paints wild or urban animals and birds that are native to the area being painted. ROA usually uses a minimal color palette, such as black and white, but also creates works using vibrant colours depicting the flesh or internal systems within the animals and birds.

"ROA treats each surface he paints like a space to investigate, play with, and fit his creatures into. The technical perfection of his painting belies an underlying resourcefulness with simple tools,” “The animals are matched to their location, with rats in New York City and elephants in Bangkok. There are dark and funny messages, the beauty of both life and death, universal metaphors, inside jokes, and occasional violence, but always in ways that honor the animals and the spaces where they are painted."

Alex Brewer, also known as HENSE, is an American contemporary artist, best known for his dynamic, vivid and colorful abstract paintings and monumental wall pieces. He has been active since the 1990s. In 2002 he began accepting commissions for artwork and over the course of the last decade has established a solid reputation as a commissioned artist, having appeared in several solo and group shows.

The lanes and arcades of Perth, Western Australia are collectively becoming culturally important to the city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linde Ivimey</span> Australian sculptor (born 1965)

Linde Ivimey is an Australian sculptor.

Aiko Nakagawa, known as Lady Aiko or AIKO, is a Japanese street artist based in Brooklyn, New York. She is known for her ability to combine western art movements and eastern technical, artistic skills, as well as for her large-scale works installed in cities including Rome, Italy, Shanghai, China and Brooklyn, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lindsay Edward</span> Australian artist (1919–2007)

Lindsay M. Edward (1919–2007) was an Australian abstract artist, mosaicist and teacher. He was born in Victoria on 26 August 1919.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marsala House</span> Heritage listing building in Dianella, Western Australia

Marsala House is a residential home in Dianella, in suburban Perth, Western Australia, designed by architect Iwan Iwanoff. It is the youngest heritage-listed residence in Western Australia.

References

  1. Babiolakis, Madeleine (28 September 2010). "From ghetto brick to gallery white". Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 31 January 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 Evans, Kathy (3 August 2011). "Streets Ahead". The Age . Retrieved 31 January 2012.
  3. "Writing on the wall". The West Australian. 17 January 2004. p. 6.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Simpson, Alex (21 September 2011). "Stormie Mills". GQ Magazine Australia. Retrieved 31 January 2012.
  5. Dimasi, Rita. "Stormie Mills Graffiti World". Artshub. Metro Gallery. Retrieved 31 January 2012.
  6. Mills, Stormie. "Stormie First Solo Exhibition Installation". YouTube . Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "Stormie Wells solo show". PerthNow . The Sunday Times. 14 May 2007. Retrieved 31 January 2012.
  8. Osburn, Chris (July 2008). "Chris Osburn interviews Stormie Mills". Whitehot Magazine. Retrieved 31 January 2012.
  9. 1 2 "The Ghostvillage Project". BBC Films . Retrieved 31 January 2012.
  10. Andersen, Fletcher (3 October 2012). "Stormie Mills @ The Cullen Hotel". Invurt.
  11. "25 Years of agIdeas".
  12. "2013 Richmond Mural Project". Art Whino. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
  13. Bochenski, Natalie (23 August 2013). "Brisbane festival installation art to breed like rabbits". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
  14. Atfield, Cameron (14 September 2014). "New undies for giant Brisbane Festival bunny". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
  15. Bevis, Stephen (22 March 2015). "Red flamingoes fly off with sculpture prize". The West Australian. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
  16. McRae, Ross (2 June 2012). "Dianella Disco House Sold". The West Australian . Retrieved 12 April 2013.
  17. Caccetta, Wendy (17 June 2007). "Perth Confidential". News.com.au . Retrieved 12 April 2013.
  18. McRae, Ross (2 June 2012). "Dianella disco house sold". The West Australian . Retrieved 29 October 2021.
  19. Macdonald, Kim (1 December 2021). "Light up the dance floor, Disco House has sold" . The West Australian. Retrieved 15 February 2022.