It’s only been a little over a year and a half since we ran our feature interview with Heesco, yet it feels like much longer. This may be because in that time, Heesco has pushed his work at such a rapid rate that it has now evolved into an entirely different beast from when we first spoke to him.

Though still holding all of the essence of his previous work, his upcoming show Manifest will be a new exploration. Taking the ideas and the manifestations of his passion for art and popular culture, and meshing them with themes derived from Mongolian culture and street art, this week he will be presenting it all on the walls of RTIST Gallery.

Heesco Manifest from Rtist Gallery on Vimeo.

Since moving to Melbourne from Sydney, Heesco has worked on a  vast number of projects and been involved in several group shows, notably Surface Tension at aMBUSH Gallery and our recent show, Paperape, amongst others.  He also won last years Sydney Secret Walls competition, painted a huge amount of murals, from Melbourne Central, The Cullen Hotel, Outpost Project and the laneways and streets of Melbourne. He has also been the subject of several short videos, including the below tribute to Tibet.

As a good friend of Heescos, I’ve had a lot of chances to see him at work over the past year, and have come to thoroughly admire his dedication, hard work and “just paint” attitude.

I’ve also been blessed to have the chance to follow Heesco through the process of working on this latest show, from concept to implementation, and, quite simply, it has blown me away.

There’s no doubt that one of the biggest impacts on Heescos artistic practice over the past year has been his move into the Blender studios. Nestled in a surreptitious laneway off Franklin street in the heart of the city, Blender has for ten years now been the bastion of underground art in Melbourne. Artists from all walks of life have entered its highly vaulted walls through an ever evolving painted laneway, (a historical site unto itself), to reside, paint, party or just hang out with friends who may be residents there.

Blenders open plan style lends itself to continual feedback, and its highly social environs has given Heesco the ability to flourish and to dedicate his free time to painting and developing, in addition to his already powerful repertoire, new techniques and styles in order to take his work further that he has ever taken it before. Of course, being a fairly open plan space, sometimes a few gentle reminders to respect the space have to be put in place!

The majority of times we’ve visited Heesco over the past few months in the studio, he has been sitting in the same spot, painting image upon image. Some of the pieces he has completed are able to bring out the essence of his subjects with a masterfully deft touch  – knowing the subject below personally, I can safely say that he’s captured her beautifully.

From portraits and a new reverse stencil technique, paint and spray, we’re pretty excited about it all. Personally, though, one of our favourite parts of what we’ve seen coming up are the lightbox images that he’s been working on – they’re detailed, golden and gorgeous.

Follow on for the rest of the images of his process, and a sneak peak at some of the lighbox works he’s been etching out.

There’s no doubt that this is going to be a great show, and we’ll be there with bells on.

Check out Heescos show Manifest at RTIST Gallery this Thursday night, and check out his website for more details on the artist.