Roll out the Red Carpet.. Lights Vision, Action!

Artisans! I am pleased to announce that a design of mine has been chosen as the brand identity for The State Theatre Company of South Australia’s 2010 theatre program “Red Carpet”.

The design will be seen across Adelaide throughout the year as the company promotes and markets the exuberant new theatre program.
It’s a great honour and nice to have more of my work out there in the public arena.

I based some of the idea for the character on Colonel William Light.

He arrived in South Australia in 1836 with the task of deciding upon the site for Adelaide. Light, was in fact the first Surveyor-General of South Australia and himself an artist. In fact, if you are in the neighborhood, there is a wonderful self portrait of his in the Art Gallery of South Australia and it is from this painting I have "borrowed" his uniform jacket for my own design (see image at the bottom of this posting).

On a similar note, the pointing finger of my charater is a reference to the incredible statue of Light which stands at Montefiore Hill in North Adelaide. The area is known as “Light's Vision”, hence my title "Lights Vision..Action" which is a metaphor for live theatre. I have this arm pointing down at the red carpet in my design..

The black crown the character is wearing is a nod to the “king” motifs in the work of painter Jean Basquiat (ok some self indulgence :) although that along with the mask and nose lend themselves to a theatrical setting.

Old habits die hard, and my continuing fascination with elevating people or objects in my paintings snuck its way into this little fella’s space via a floating red carpet.

The whole thing was put together in Adobe Illustrator and PhotoShop, after hand drawing and scanning various versions of the design from my sketchbook.

For the record: The State Theatre Company of South Australia is the state's flagship professional theatre company performing an annual season of classic and contemporary Australian and international theatre works at its main performance home – the Dunstan Playhouse. The Company is a major community and cultural resource for all South Australians and is vital to artistic life in the state.