Everything in Canberra stencil artist E.L.K's studio is a testament to how painstaking and meticulous his craft is. Dozens of used Montana and Krylon spray-cans line the shelves. Finished stencils, spray paint daubs and ideas for future projects smother the walls. A bucket full of six years worth of used scalpals serves as a constant reminder of his labour-intensive love. One gets the impression that E.L.K never takes a break, that he is indeed addicted to his craft.

He is self-taught, but the art form he began toying with because 'he needed a hobby' has started to gain him international attention and awards. He won the prize for Most Popular Piece at the Melbourne Stencil Festival Poster Competition in 2008 and was runner-up n the Australian Stencil Art Prize in 2009. His work has been exhibited in the USA, Iran, Germany, Britain and Australia. His work was hung in an exhibition named Your Kid Can't Do This in Sydney (Melbourne and Canberra) along with numerous international stencil artists. After seeing his work, you realise that in regards to E.L.K, this tongue in cheek exhibition name is not far wrong.

When one first sees an E.L.K stencil, it is difficult to figure out how something so photo-realistic was created with a spray-can. There are two E.L.K works in my collection. In one, a heroin addict (who E.L.K refers to as 'Jimmy') stares downward with heavily lidded eyes and matted hair, a vision of melancholy. Nearby there is an almost surreal impression of a bridge in my hometown Queanbeyan, where the heightened colours give it a magical quality. The detail is amazing. Almost every brick in the bridge and every leaf in the tree is visible and all of this with a spray can.

While he has done workshops with youth, like his recent Belconnen Art Centre's Summer Program Sessions and at the National Portrait Gallery, it is mostly a solitary road. Accompanied by his faithful Australian Bulldog Daisy, listening to music and audio books of novels and Mandarin courses, and until he quit smoking, puffing countless cigarettes, he spends up to 200 hours on each painting. Methodically cutting out layer upon layer of shade and detail from recycled acetate plastic to create the stencils, he then uses a spray-can to build up the image from lightest colour to darkest. Although the aim seems to be photorealism, the heightened flattened background colours add an otherworldly element to it - reality taken one step further. There is a relationship to the science of photography and colour theory in the way he must deconstruct a scan or an image first then re-contsruct it in selected stencil layers. But it is in that very reconstruction that the difference lies - the selectivity is the art.

In person he is softly spoken and admits that he finds it hard to promote himself, though he does say that there 'aren't many people that can do what I do'. Even his artist name is enigmatic, though you might picture a large beast of the forest, the name E.L.K comes from a chance piece of information about the epiphytical tropical Elkhorn fern. His interpretation is that the plant is integrally connected to the structure of the tree, but also independent of it, and as a result free. A little bit of a stretch, but it goes to show where he stands in the scene

excerpt from "The Subversive side"
by Omar Musa
Art Monthly Australia
#230 June 2010 p60




Exhibition History

AWARDS
2010- Winner, Australian Stencil Art Prize
2009- runner up, Australian Stencil art prize
2008- Most popular Piece, Melbourne Stencil Festival

SOLO SHOWS
2011- Look what you made me do...., Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne
2011- This is why we can't have nice things..., Oh really Gallery, Newtown, Sydney
2010- How you like me now Bitch?, Front Gallery, Canberra

GROUP SHOWS
2011- Paste up exhibition (ragad art kalliatsis), Hungary
2010- Space Invadas, National Gallery of Australia (merchandise in Giftshop)
2010- Don't push mong, China heights, Surry hills, Sydney
2010- Australian Stencil art Prize, Oh Really gallery, Newtown, Sydney
2010- Don't push mong, Canberra
2010- Pop rocks, Urban Uprising gallery, Sydney
2010- Sweet streets, 1000 pound bend, melbourne
2010- Friends with knives, crewest gallery, Los Angeles
2010- Urban art 10A, BSG, Melbourne
2009- Old Skoolin, Art whino, Washington/Los Angeles
2009- Get Trucked, per square metre, Melbourne
2009- Melbourne Stencil Festival, Melbourne
2009- YourKidCantDoThis, Sydney Show, North Bondi
2009- Urban Art Agenda #3, Ballarat, Melbourne and Brisbane Powerhouse
2009- September, Dirty Pilot Group show, LA, USA
2009- Spin that thing, vinyl show, Famous when dead Gallery, Melbourne
2009- In2change Exhibition, Belconnen Community Centre
2009- YourKidCantDoThis, Melbourne Show
2009- YourKidCantDoThis' Canberra Show, Legislative assembly
2009- "Stencil" Art Whino Group show, National Harbour, MD, USA
2009- Australian Stencil Art prize, Exhibition of finalists (runner up)
2008- Spray 1387, Tehran, Iran
2008- Melbourne Stencil Festival
2008- Cacophony Group show, Manuka
2007- Cacophony Group show, The Front Gallery
2007- M16 Group show, M16, Canberra

COMMISSIONS
2010- Parlour Wine Room, New Acton, Canberra
2010- Blakstone, Manuka, Canberra
2009- Parlour Wine Room, New Acton, Canberra
2009- Knightsbridge Penthouse, Braddon, Canberra
2009- Satis Cafe, Watson, Canberra
2008- North Bondi Sandpit, Bondi, Sydney
2008- A class cars, Fyshwick, Canberra
2008- City walk mural, Civic, Canberra
2008- E.L.K/HaHa mural, Petrie plaza, Civic, Canberra

WORKSHOPS
2010- Studio Workshops (at Studio E.L.K)
2010- Belconnen Art Centre (continuing workshops)
2009- National Portrait Gallery (workshop)
2009- National Portrait Gallery (Demonstration) Gallery opening day
2009- Youth week (volunteer workshop)
2008- Blue Gum community school (volunteer workshop)