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Combining ornate decoration with bold form, Brendon’s work captures the beauty and fun in everyday objects. “Design is all around us,” he says. “I love to celebrate it and sometimes poke fun at it.” Brendon believes that even bad design can find a place in people’s affections: “Pop culture often produces objects or sounds that appeal to the lowest common denominator in all of us, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have value.” This is reflected in some of his liveliest work. His elaborate, stylised renderings of cheesy pop lyrics evoke the free expression of singing in the shower, while familiar Aussie brand names in intricate, explosive line drawings electrify fading childhood memories.
For Brendon, the Devil is in the finest detail. “No matter how patterned or architectural some ornament may appear, the truth is all of it originates in nature. Regardless of how stylised our patterns seem to be, they have all been inspired by the flora and fauna we share the world with. I try to combine the fine detail of these interpreted patterns with surprising form and composition.”
Brendon’s work mixes ornamentation in new ways to create patterns that are completely new but can seem familiar to the viewer: “There is an intelligence and order in nature that we naturally respond to, so we instinctively recognise natural patterns that emerge in ornament from all around the world.” The interweaving of diverse cultural forms gives much of Brendon’s work an Art Deco feel but the intricate, cross-cultural style belongs very much to today’s urban, globalised world.
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