After we interviewed him a month or two ago, prior to his solo show “House Of Giants”, we heard rumour that Fintan Magee would be heading down to the ‘burn for a little while – well, he arrived, and in the time since his extraordinary work has been showing up all over the place.

As part of his trip down here to Melbourne, he will be doing a showing over at the superb RTIST Gallery with his next body of work “Paper Plains” – and if his pieces on the streets and the canvases from his last show is any indication – wow, this one is going to be off the hook!

“The Paper Plains collection of paintings, drawings and installation works add an unexpected magic to the mundane and forgotten objects of everyday life. The world may be round, but a box can still provide hours of entertainment to those with a little imagination.

Born in Lismore NSW, and growing up in Brisbane, Fintan Magee began drawing as a young child. Exposed to Brisbane’s graffiti culture in his teens, Magee began to scrawl his name across the city in large vibrant letter forms. Moving away from traditional graffiti in recent years, Magee has started to explore new ideas and imagery within his painting. In the last year he has created some of the largest and most striking street pieces in Australia.

His bold guerilla mural works often combine still life painting of found objects with installation elements. Magee’s works explore themes of waste, consumption, loss and transition. They contain a sentimentality and softness influenced by children’s books. While many artists sustain their lifestyles with day jobs unrelated to their creative practice, Magee hones his skills regularly in gainful employment as one of Brisbane’s premier muralists. He has been responsible for many of Brisbane’s progressive new large scale public artworks, which frequently pop up around Brisbane’s inner-city suburbs.

Magee’s work can also be seen gilding the interior of many local restaurants, clubs and hip clothing stores. More recently in the lead up to his first Melbourne solo show, Magee has coloured the city with various murals and paste-ups, including a 3 story mural in West Melbourne. 

The diligence, technical skill and progressive approach Magee employs in his work has already received acclaim across the country. Magee has been a finalist of the Prometheus, Lethbridge and Churchie art awards and this year won the Cliftons Art Prize ‘People’s Choice’ Award. He has painted across Australia, Europe and the USA and his work adorns the walls of many discerning art collectors.”

Who: Fintan Magee
What: Paper Plains solo show
Where: RTIST Gallery, 29 St Edmonds Road, Prahran, VIC
When: Show opens Friday 18th November 6pm til 9pm, and runs til Sunday 4th December

Check out RTIST Gallery as well as Fintans website for more info on this upcoming show. Also check out a special preview video (we’ll have this one up in this weeks Transmissions also).