Prodigal son and Oz stencil art pioneer Anthony Lister returns to the southern shores shores with an upcoming exhibition at the Metro gallery. Love him or hate him, this is going to be a great exhibition.

“‘Antony Lister was born in Brisbane, Australia, in 1979, and later completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the Queensland College of the Arts. He helped pioneer the stencil and street art movement in Brisbane before moving to New York in 2003 to work with his mentor, Max Gimblett. He met the New Zealand-born artist at the opening of Gimblett’s major solo exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery.

Lister borrows from his immediate surroundings, painting parodies of modern life. His influences are varied: graffiti, stencilling, installations, Pop art, comic book imagery, cartoons and his recollections of childhood when everything seemed fascinating and animated super-heroes ruled his television screen.

With bold and brash spontaneity and remarkable confidence he paints the complex contradictions of everyday life, and does so with an element of humour. He admits:

“What I read, what I see, what I do, who I know and what I eat for lunch, it’s all relevant to me. I guess I am in a perpetual state of accepting the obvious as a valid source of inspiration. And it’s also very important that my work continues to be fun and exciting to me.””

-Ken McGregor
Extract from ‘Anthony Lister’, Macmillan mini-art series No. 13, 2010

Who: Anthony Lister
What: You Call That a Backrub – Solo Exhibition
Where: The Metro Gallery, 1214 High Street, Armadale, Victoria 3143
When: Wednesday the 7th of April, 6:30 – 8:30pm

Via the Metro Gallery website