It’s been a defining year for Sunshine Coast projection artist Brian Keayes aka ‘Möbius’. For over 18 years, Brian has been exhibiting in music and art festivals, nightclubs and art galleries across Australia and Japan. However 2018 has been a breakout year for the artist exhibiting in three major art festivals across the Sunshine Coast, has just returned from developing a prototype installation at Burning Man at Black Rock Desert in Nevada and is about to commence a two week installation at Swell Sculpture Festival on the Sunshine Coast.
“2018 really has been perfect timing for me as an artist, as I have found not only my medium of projecting light onto sculpture and natural landscape, but also having found my messaging, bringing attention to some of humanity’s largest environmental challenges over the next 100 years” Brian commented. “Art is a fantastic way to open up dialog around our most tightly held beliefs and values, as well as sharing information in new ways.”
He has been a regular contributing projection artist at Woodford Folk Festival and has been continually supported by the local councils to exhibit in festivals and art shows over the years, but it was this line up of art festivals both locally and internationally that has really brought momentum and attention to his art form.
Key projects in 2018 included collaborating with Phil Smith as part of Anywhere Theatre’s “The Cave” earlier this year, producing a massive visual wall of imagery at the USC’s state of the art Visualisation Studio. He was showcased as a feature artist for NoosaAlive! bombing Hastings St, and Sofitel with environmental messaging including submerging shopfronts in water from rising sea levels and filling the entire side of Sofitel with images of plastic bottles being manufactured and the number 1,000,000 taking a minute to move down the building, shedding light on the 1 million plastic bottles being produced worldwide every minute. He was also accepted into Horizon Festival collaborating with ‘Arts for Arts Sake’ and Mic’s Lab on a piece called ‘The Greenhouse’. With prime position in the centre of USC, visitors could enjoy the physical house, made of single use plastic bottles during the day, and at night he developed video loops of fire, flood and storms, creating a morbidly beautiful experience for the viewer to reflect on changes we can all make individually to reduce the effects of greenhouse gas emissions.
At the same time, he was invited to collaborate with a sculpture artist from the Gold Coast – Clayton Blake at Burning Man (Black Rock Desert, Nevada). Here Brian took the international stage, prototyping a seascape videoed at Peregian Beach, and projected it onto the ‘playa’ to an audience of 78,000 over 7 nights.
His latest work commences this Friday night as part of Swell Sculpture Festival, collaborating with local Gold Coast Indigenous artist Glenn Barry. The work will be projected for the first time ever on the rock at Currumbin Alley, the iconic surf break. The local audience was in excess of 250,000 last year, so it is a great opportunity to be showcased alongside some of the world’s best sculptors. This new work will feature indigenous stories as old as time interpreted into future paradigms.
Swell Sculpture Festival runs from Friday 14th to 23rd September 2018 at Currumbin Beach.
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