He has been a finalist in the Black Swan Portrait Prize, Albany Art Prize, Brisbane Art Prize, Victoria Park Art Awards and many others. He was awarded residencies at Red Gate Gallery (Beijing China) and Abroas (Holland), and is sponsored by the iconic art company Hameline (Canson). His own writing has been published in Raw Vision (New York), Artist Profile magazine, Australian Art Review, New Daw
n magazine and The Australian Newspaper amongst others. His early love for comic book art as a child spawned his first interest in drawing, so a return to the genre was always on the cards at some point. His many collaborations with Laith Tierney opened the door, and their shared interest in the esoteric side of life can't help but find its way into the imagery and ethos of Mysteria Maxima Media. WRITER
Usually under the nom-de-plume Laith Tyranny (no doubt a nod to his preoccupation with comic book heroes and villains) Laith has fronted some of the most interesting bands to have come out of Perth in the past 10 years. The Bible Bashers: a kind of free-form gothy swamp-blues thing, heavily influenced by gimmicky evangelists and other dark-but-funny s**t. Fear Of Comedy: Laith’s oldest and most personal band – lyrically transparent, explorative of both music and mind, and very close to the heart of its creator. Add about 10 other bands he’s been in over the years, tweak all of the ideas but stay within the overall master plan, and you have Laith’s discography. As a front-man, he is both singer and performer; deliberately character-based and theatrical, inevitably as another by-product of the psychosis. Everything he does is familiar, but with a new (and usually darker) slant. For instance, Laith would probably tell you Sinatra is a big influence. This would be true, but the Sinatra in Laith’s head is some kind of Tommy Gun-wielding John Dillinger type guy, who lives in a Bond villain submarine lair by day and sings in Vegas by night. Probably with superpowers. Reality is never enough for Laith, because his imagination isn’t kept in a box. It’s on fire and being constantly fed gasoline. This can't help but fuel his approach to writing which melds pop culture, esoterica, film noir, social politics with a healthy dash of punk. A long-time collector of comic culture and a regular fixture in the local comic scene, he creates characters which step outside the usual boundaries of the genre, challenging the reader's perception of the hero, the villain and everything in between.
