Cold Front ...

Sit back, close your eyes and conjure up a picture of Australia... that's it, keep going, what do you see? Long beaches, plenty of surf, corked hats, Alf and Ailsa Stewart maybe! Well, whatever image your mind conjures up when you think of the glorious island down under, you can be sure it doesn't involve Stormie Mills and his legions of darkly alluring friends. Hailing from Perth, Stormie is one of Australia's foremost graffiti artists with many years of illicit wall smashing under his belt.

Having started off the way most young kids do, writing names and trying to get up, Stormie soon realised that he could find a better medium through which to communicate his messages. Stormie's focus shifted away from words and onto people, where he found a more powerful and seductive medium through which to express himself. "I roll out letters sometimes but really I'd prefer to communicate visually on a deeper emotional level with characters," Stormie explains. "They scream more about the way the world 'works' and I believe that the downtrodden are all super-heroes on the inside."

So after a summer of inspiration and exhibitions Stormie is now back in the warmer climes of Oz and concentrating on a few little projects that he has under way including some street installation art and plans for a new exhibition sometime in the future. For those of you who missed out on the 'Third' exhibition, to your detriment, you may well get another chance to gaze into the black and white world of the Storm boy as he has plans to hit these shores again soon with more of his two dimensional friends. In one last flurry of insight Stormie imparts that there is a little of himself in his characters: "They have what I see, the darker side of life, the not such a pretty picture side. I like the damaged beauty in the world."

While the philosophical vein is still tapped what does Stormie see the future holding: "As my friend Matt told me today, 'tomorrow hasn't been written yet'."

STORMIE MILLS HOMEPAGE