Gimiks Born, is a builder of worlds.

As a storyteller, and lover of both pop culture and ancient histories and mythology, each frame of the work he produces contains a creative narrative that is nothing short of immersive. With cross skilled disciplines in design, illustration, painting and street art, Brisbane based Gimiks Born has, over the years, developed characters, icons and storylines that coalesce his various passions into a visual playground.

When we had the chance to send some questions off to Gimicks, we didn’t hesitate – the man has been on our, and many others, radar for some time. What we received back, unsurprisingly, was a veritable feast of words and imagery, and we found ourselves plunged into a creative land of fantasy, fables and Bitter Winds.

You moved over here from New Zealand back when you were quite young, and have also travelled extensively – how did this exposure to different cultures influence you getting into the artistic world – and can you give us a bit of background on how it all happened?

Yeah I moved out here pretty young, so Australia was really what influenced me early on from an art sense I guess.  I can remember reading old Aussie Hype mags at primary school that my mate got off his sister’s boyfriend.  I would copy all the b’boy styled charos, and try my hand at letters too – wow, that was a long ass time ago haha. 

All I could remember back then of NZ by the time I hit school here was just of Auckland city, forests, farmlands and my pet cow daisy haha.  Haha na I’m serious, and I had a pet goat too named Billy as well, and a crazy big ginger cat named Mince, it was a real zoo!  I’ve been back there a few times to see the fam’ and its great, the Aotearoa countryside and forests are unmatched, they definitely stay in the visual catalogue for future reference. 

I’ve spent a fair bit of time in Canada too, mostly to snowboard but the scenery there is something amazing, the snow is stupid good and the mountains are sooo big!  Japan was crazy as well, sooo much style, culture and heritage there, a real visual feast for the senses.   I’ve also made my way to Jamaica, which was rad – I would love to go back there.  So yeah I’ve been a couple of places, not heaps though compared to some. 

Each place I visit or live in I try to take in a little bit and these images or events will stay in my creative memory until I need to use them.  Having these images sitting there inspires you to just think of visually imaginative things I guess, and it’s just what you need to get the creative ball rolling. Seeing different artists doing their thing too wherever you travel really inspires you to create yourself. Weather its writers hitting freights in Toronto, or Jamaican locals selling market handi-crafts, each creative individual inspires you in their own unique way.  These characters you meet along the way make things very memorable, and, no doubt, they pop up as redesigned incarnations throughout my work – art is funny like that.

A lot of your work gives homage to, and presents, transformed icons of popular culture visages. Bits and pieces pop up here and there – what are some of your favourites – both back in the day, as well as in recent times? What do you often find yourself consistently drawing on for ideas?

Yeah sometimes the odd morsel of nostalgia will fall into a painting or work I’m doing.  I have a deep love of hip hop and the culture that resonates within it, so you will see a little of this sneaking through.  Like 80s and early 90s street style clothing and culture, a bit of boom bap, just whatever comes into my head at the time I guess- or whatever I’m listening too at the time helps as well. 

Comic references, old toy references (look out for sneaky transformers G1 plugs ha) cult films, Japanese culture always seems to leak into my stuff too. Lately I’ve found myself doing a lot of Egyptian, Babylonian and Sumerian research lately, as well as a little political and historical finds too so maybe a little of that will drip into my work, who knows.

How much planning do you put into your work, and do you have set
methodologies to how you work? Is the creation of a new image a free flowing, or do you enjoy implementing planning and idea mapping process before starting a new piece?

I have heaps of little notepads, that I’ve collected along the way, that have random words, sketches, icons, quotes and other strange phrases which are just basically immediate brain ramblings that are ideas for future artworks.  These are great to have around, and to look back on when I’m starting a new artwork, or at least to get me on an imaginative path to somewhere. More often than not, Ill have a basic formula that I’ll stick to, this normally involves: HEAPS of thumbnails-sketch up-base colours-details-beer-signoff.

I think that’s just the graphic designer side of myself coming out-all structure and grids, ha!

Sometimes Ill mix it up and start with just an initial sketch, only rough pencil and a briefly outlined idea, then just take this to a canvas (or wall) and see how it flows and evolves. This is definitely an unrestricting process, and I find it really good to do sometimes that breaks up the formal direction of other stuff I do. It’s especially good for blowing out the cobwebs after a work week in front of a computer screen – you start to get square eyes from too much Photoshop!

Snapshots are often where it is at with your work, obviously there are underlying narratives, and that you let the viewer interpret them – you seem to enjoy the puzzle aspect of this, and making viewers of your work think about the pieces themselves – what is it about this aspect of art that interests you the most?

Hmmm.  Basically, I just love the storytelling aspect of art, first and foremost, to be able to tell a tale visually is what I really aim to do, straight up.  The best way I can do that ,without blatantly laying it all out there, is to just to depict a single frame snapshot of a larger puzzle. Through a handful of separate artworks, you can illustrate one or two characters interacting in different situations or environments, and this entices curiosity in the viewer, hopefully leaving them wanting to find out more of the underlying narrative and characters depicted.  I like how this plays out with my art, you find some people falling in love with certain characters and wanting to know more about them or how they might be connected with others.  It makes putting colours and lines on a canvas or wall a little more interesting this way I think.  I guess this approach to my work derives from a childhood of reading picture books, comics and having a love for fables, myths and legends. 

For as long as I can remember, I would always ask myself why are all these awesome artists so dull when it comes to captivating the imagination of an audience.  Don’t get me wrong I can appreciate a good still life, landscape or portrait; great art is still great art. My argument lies with “why not tell a story with your craft, lead the viewer on a visual journey as opposed to sitting them on a leather ottoman and showing them your next best replication of what already exists”.  Dunno, that’s just my vibe anyway – each to their own. I think that’s why I am so committed to my own work having a solid, narrative substance to it.  I’d get super bored and start up a bad habit if I didn’t I think haha.

Just further on the above – can you tell us more about Bitter Winds
and the themes behind it?  Bitter Winds seems to be a form of a lose
narrative – is this something that is in your head, or something that
is evolving as you go? What further glimpses can you offer us of this underlying realm, and what’s next up in this saga?

The Bitter Winds world came about through a great need to get all these random images, characters and stories that are in my head, out and into some sort of orchestrated storyline.  I’ve always wanted to create my own series and world within it, so I guess now is as good as time as any. 

The interesting thing, is that I have found that the majority of the characters I have been depicting, and painting, throughout my works (since 2004), have found their place and role within the narrative – without really meaning them too. This is where my first solo exhibition’s title “Six Degrees of Sinister” fell into place.

The idea with that solo was that all the characters depicted are, in turn, tiny pieces of a larger tale. 

So far, the story development has been quite organic, taking form as I go along.  This approach will need to change in the coming months as a need for direction and proper outline to the story will need to be firmly in place to start visualizing the saga into graphic novel form. Put simply, the soup that’s in my head needs to be laid out so I can accurately tell the tale, and give all characters the proper attention that they deserve. 

I also plan to convey some of the stories with graffiti murals on large walls – and, of course, inviting other artists to get involved for some collaborations and just basically try and have fun with it.  Hopefully, when I leak more of the world that is Bitter Winds, and start to tell the characters stories, heads will be feeling it –  and with any luck it will open my work up to a new audience as well.

So, in the coming months I will be introducing certain important characters, villains etc to start to get people familiar with the Bitter Winds story and leave them wanting more – don’t sleep people!

Graffiti and illustration often seem to be synonymous styles, and you draw upon both worlds – what do you think it is about the two art forms that lend heavily to each other? Is there, in your eyes, even a massive distinction between the two, besides scale, and do you approach a work on canvas in a similar way as you would a wall?

Great question.  Personally I think graff and illustration are tremendously close in the artistic spectrum  I would even say their side by side … haha, yeah that’s pretty close. You find that they will borrow technically and conceptually from each other, more often than not. All you need to do is open a comic book, or graphic novel and you’ll see plenty of graffiti letters in the sound effects, titles etc.  Go to a popular painting spot, and you’ll probably see a few comic characters or similar rendering techniques hidden amongst all the painted monikers. 

For both disciplines you need a steadfast knowledge of line, flow, composition and colour –  and ones style goes a very long way in each game. Hidden amongst the typographical noise in most writers heads you’ll usually find a childhood comic nerd and it usually goes the other way too.  Most comic heads, or illustrators, will appreciate the bold expression and structure of a graffiti piece.  At the end of the day, however, both are legitimate forms of artistic expression,-usually the biggest difference between them is where they are physically performed.

Earlier in the year you participated in the Red Bull Wreckers event – how did you find the competition, and performing live? What were your overall impressions?

Yeah it was fun – it was run a little more structured this time around, with it being a trans-Tasman competition. I think this aspect of it was quiet good, was good to go up against a few of the Aotearoa boys.  Performing live? I have no problem with, I actually enjoy it.  You can feed off the crowd too and it makes for a pretty positive atmosphere. 

Tell us a bit more about the Streetcube event that was held at Surfersa  month or two ago – what was it all about, what did you get up to, and what were your overall impressions of the event itself?

Yeah Street Cube was dope!  It was basically an initiative run by Mariam Arcilla in conjunction with the Surfers Paradise festival.  Our live painting exhibit went down as part of the big closing party of the week long event.  Myself and three other artists, Beastman, Shida and Jae Copp got together and rocked a big wall in the Gold Coast over two full days.  It was a great project and even better to have a paint with the guys as well, I’d do it again for sure!  Was fun to drive the cherry pickers too.  We ended up painting the mural over 19′ tall so we had to hire a couple of them to get it all done. 

I’m slowly getting better at heights – slowly.

You also did some work for the last 12 x 12 exhibition at aMBUSH
Gallery – what did you show in the exhibition? Was it your first 12 x 12, and what were your thoughts on the format?

Yeah I was stoked to be invited to that show, shot to Beastman for hitting me up for it.  It’s an awesome concept as it enables 12 different artists to smash out twelce small works, and punters can pick up super affordable art in the process.  There ends up being around 144 works in the show too, so its nuts, and always makes for a great exhibit. 

This was the fourth instalment and I was pumped, as the three before delivered some pretty big names, and some dope art, so I really had to try and step up.  I pulled from the Bitter Winds series and told a subtle 12-panel narrative involving two predominant characters and how they first came to meet (ed: the wooden panel images throughout this interview are all a part of the 12×12 narrative).

For those playing at home, one of the characters is an old giant Grizzly Bear who practises the art of bonsai – he first appeared in my collab with Shida, from my last solo exhibition.  Don’t worry, more will be revealed soon about this story – and others, soon! I promise haha. 

What is planned for the rest of the year? Will we see a continuation
of the Bitter Winds saga? Any more solo shows in the making? More
travel? More painting? Just more of more? :)

Yep, to be accurate though the question should be asked “what isn’t planned” haha.  Everything seems to be getting crazier by the week for real!  All good though, aint nothing to it but to do it.  Ok…. coming up is Just Another Group Show for Semi-Permanent I’m showing in, this drops the 22nd of September in Melbourne.  I’m in a group show/fundraiser called 360 Project curated by Qwux which drops in Sydney October 13th, this will be dope as its travelling to Melbs and the Gold Coast too. 

I’m taking part in a live painting project and auction for 19 Karen Contemporary Gallery on the 15th of October which I’m really excited about – don’t miss this people!!

The Bay crew have a video spot on myself that’s being put together as we speak. Benny @ Picture Wheel Company has me working day and night on upcoming skateboard wheel deadlines haha – whatup Benny!! 

Of course more and more painting to fit in, designing a tarot card, and, finally, the Bitter Winds graphic novel I am working on, to top it all off.  Can’t wait to start leaking out a few visuals of this saga soon!

In regards to my next solo show …man, nothing is yet in stone … I’ll keep you posted though, Bitter Winds 2 is on the simmer.  Peace.

For more info, images and work from the amazingly talented Gimiks Born, as well as more images and ideas from his Bitter Winds world, check out his website!