Amok Island - at 100 Hampton Road - Photo courtesy of Jean-Paul Horre

Amok Island

Urban Art, Murals

November 29, 2014

A lifelong fascination with the natural world has inspired Dutch artist Amok Island to create works that explore nature's relationship with mankind. The self-taught multi-disciplinary artist creates artworks and large-scale murals inspired by early naturalists' scientific illustrations. The precision and technical details used for identification purposes the artist has incorporated into his unique style that is now renowned across the globe. Over the years, he has painted walls in Australia, Netherlands, Portugal, Berlin, Indonesia, and Egipt, to name a few.

Amok Island's Murals

The artist, born in Amsterdam in 1983, spent years drawing on the walls of his hometown. At 24, Amok Island decided to travel across Asia. After visiting Perth in Western Australia in 2009, he realized he had found his perfect home. Being close to the sea and living in a town that is open to street art, this was a perfect opportunity for him to expand on his technical skills. Most of his large-scale murals, canvases, and screen prints are inspired by the underwater photographs he makes. Throughout his career, Island has explored themes of natural exploration and conservation. When he traveled to Perth Hedland in the Pilbara in Western Australia in 2018, one of the few beaches in the world where large sea turtles come to lay their eggs, the artist felt compelled to paint a mural of a turtle hatchling. For Amok, there is nothing better than a mural that has an educational aspect to it.

The Art and Nature

It took a while for Amok Island to find his style. After attempting to attend professional art school, he was dissatisfied with assignments he did not wish to do. For a time, he drew graffiti, but they never turned up how he wanted. It was only after his move to Australia that his unique style emerged. The artist prefers the minimalistic approach to his art, where minimal shape and color remain capable of realistically representing a subject. Yet everything exists in a perfect balance. The carefully considered color palette is paired with bare minimum geometric elements of form and places, depicting a vibrant underwater life.

In 2013 Island submerged several sculptures into various marine environments around Western Australia and documented the changes on film and photography over one year. In 2020 Museum of Western Australia Boola Bardip put on permanent display the artist's screen print entitled Banksia Menziessii, and the National Gallery of Victoria added to its collection Koala poster. In 2019 his artwork Six Stages of Banksia Baxteri appeared on the Australia Post stamp.

Exhibitions

Over the years, Amok Island has showcased his work in numerous group exhibitions, including Locals (2023), International Invitational Group Show (2022), and Group Exhibition (2021) at Outré Gallery in Fitzroy, Australia. In 2022 the artist showcased ten new pieces in a solo exhibition entitled REVERIE at Kamile Gallery in Perth.

Amok Island lives and works in Perth, Australia.

Featured image: Amok Island. Copyright of the artist

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