It’s artists like Enix, who have been quietly working away at their passion and putting on shows of high quality, exploratory art, who often capture the imagination and heart of the aficionado within us.

The colourful and often dream like nature of his work is something that caught my attention a long time ago. Hanging out with the At Large crew up in Northcote, I met Enix within the week I arrived, and he was just someone whose company I immediately enjoyed. That we shared many of the same interests and that we were also both originally  from Perth was just as cool – and it didn’t take me long to start seeing his work popping up around the place, and to be inspired by it, and by his general creative demeanour. The reason I mention all of this, is that its fairly common for a artists personality to be reflected in their work – and there is just something within Enix’s that reflects his perfectly.

Beyond the personal, Enix just does beautiful-cool art. He has a flair for wonderfully surreal moments and scenes of meditative fantasy. With his fourth solo show, Sayonara, a “farewell” exhibition before he embarks on an international adventure, we caught up with Enix for a chat about all things good and art. If you haven’t discovered the work of this great creative talent just yet, read on, and be enlightened …

You moved here from Perth some time ago, what was the driving force to get out of P-town and relocate to Melbourne? Were you doing much art back there?

The driving force was initially to come and study 3D packages to get into the games/film industry. Shortly after I arrived I was asked to do a commissioned canvass by my friend and fellow artist ‘Dopio’ This fired up (with a vengeance) my slumbering painting skills, which I admit I hadn’t used in some time.

How did you find Melbourne helped to change your view of art in general, or did it? Did you find people, and the environment here welcoming?

Melbourne is like one big art gallery, just walking down a street there is art everywhere from small tags to hilarious stencils and full blown painstakingly done amazing art. Every time I go to an exhibition or walk down the street I am re-inspired. So yeah, Melbs did change my passion for art and I guess my view of it too.

The environment here is welcoming if you put yourself out there – even if it’s just a little bit, you will get a whole lot of opportunity back.

Can you give us a bit of background behind the moniker of Enix? Is there a theme behind the name, or a story of sorts?

It is appropriated from the word Phoenix. It represents an enduring rebirth of myself and my artistic style. I never want to become stagnant and am always pushing myself into, and randomly exploring new techniques, styles and mediums.

How about your work practices? How do you usually go about creating your pieces? Do you have a definitive process or is it more of a matter of finding an idea and running with it?

Sometimes I will take an idea and force myself to work with it. This helps me hone my skills. Other times I take a random approach playing with different elements and refining that. I think this helps me forge new ideas.

There’s always a colourful, near surreal feel to a lot of your pieces, obviously there is a heavy street art element to them, but where else do you draw ideas from for your pieces?

I find I am inspired a lot by other artists that I see out at exhibitions or on the street. Random observation gives me a lot of ideas as well, like looking out of a window on a train or watching light reflected off something. General zone-outs are great for this.

We took a peek at some of your archive sketches, and there was a bit of a sci-fi element to it, how do you feel your style has changed over the years?

Sci-fi is great, but I want to get my teeth into a lot more flavours. I think I have to try everything. Until you’ve tried it how do you know what else you like, as well as what you already do.

You’ve had a couple of shows before, three all up so far, not counting group shows – can you tell us a bit about these, and what you did with them?

My first show with Mishap and Dopio at The Workshop – it was a whole array of ideas that were pretty personal – the themes in it were quite introspective.

My second show (and first solo show) also at The Workshop – I had a theme of ‘Black Angels” in this one. Almost all of the pieces had a black stylised angel character in them. I enjoyed following this theme.

My third show at The Lounge – this had varied styles but focussed more on street art style themes. These were great fun to paint and took me a while to produce.

Sayonara will be your fourth show all up – what do you hope to showcase with the exhibition?

I am exhibiting an array of different styles on canvass and also exhibiting for the first time some of my digital pieces.

You’ve also delved a bit and will be presenting some of your digital work for the first time – was a reason you didn’t put this into any of your previous shows, and what form does you digital work come in?

I actually wanted to exhibit the digital stuff for a while. I tend to work until the last minute on my show and the digital stuff is stashed away on my hard drive. I have managed to forget to turn it into a tangible piece of art thus far.

What is your next move? You’re relocating after this show to other climes – what do you hope to get out of your travels and where will you be going? How heavily is art going to feature in this sojourn?

I’m heading over to Europe in October – I plan to do a bit of travelling, and scope out various countries, spotting sweet walls to paint, meeting people, and hopefully a bit of ninja snowboarding too. I intend to settle in Berlin in the end, everything I’ve heard about the place is driving me there. The art scene there sounds mega inspiring and yes, art is the reason I am going.

I want to focus my everyday efforts, as much as possible, on my art – it’s going to be epic!

Enix’s fourth solo show, Sayonara, opens tonight at At Large Gallery – get down and check it out tonight, or over the next few weeks … also, check out the Facebook event page for more details on the show.