Local artist Trent Holbrook has been joined by four international colleagues in his studio to collaborate on a variety of exciting projects.
The artists have travelled from the US, Canada and New Zealand and arrived in Mount Gambier last week for around two weeks of collaboration.
Mr Holbrook runs successful YouTube channel ‘Miscast’ and said after working with the artists online for a long time they decided to meet in person, collaborate on new videos and work with interesting people around Australia.
“It’s crazy, it was so surreal seeing everyone in person,” Mr Holbrook said.
“It was probably the happiest I have been while doing all this creative stuff and I have been doing it for around four years now.”
“Meeting all these people online with all these different backgrounds and so many different things to add to the conversations that we have, it’s really a special part of what I do,” Mr Holbrook said.
Fantasy art is a favourite amongst the artists and Mr Holbrook paints, sculpts and primarily works in miniature form along with making tabletop games.
“For me, art is sort of my expression of joy or celebration of life,” Mr Holbrook said.
“By doing art, whatever medium it is, I feel such a privilege to be able to create things and inspire other people to create things online and teach all these skills.”
Mr Holbrook said the artists would be travelling to Melbourne to work with major YouTube artist Jazza.
“All the stuff that he does aligns so perfectly with what we do and he was so excited to have us,” he said.
“We have this main mission which is make something big together and make it on a big platform, which is through Jazza, so we get lots of people’s eyes on it.
“Whatever we make it will be great.”
Mr Holbrook said he was incredibly thankful for the opportunities to pursue his art, the patronship he had found in Mount Gambier and Peter Gazzard for helping him find a studio space and providing a car to pick everyone up.
Luke Thompson from Salem, Oregon, will be staying in Mount Gambier for at least the year.
“Sculpting and painting is probably my main thing, for me it’s a great way to express myself, I just find it super calming,” Mr Thompson said.
“I love to sculpt all different kinds of things, like nature scenes, animals or monsters.”
Terran Allen who lives in Wellington, New Zealand, is particularly passionate about sculpting.
“Every time we have done a collaborative project online it’s just like this crazy, wonderful energy,” he said.
“So being able to do it in person together it’s going to be a totally different experience but something that we’re also kind of familiar with because we do know how each other work, I’m very, very excited about it.”
Bill Ward from British Columbia said he originally focused on miniatures and has now begun branching into sculpting and different types of art.
“I’m really looking forward to what we’re going to come up with, it’s going to be a lot of fun,” Mr Ward said.
Raquel Rexach, who lives in a small mountain town in Tennessee, said she loved watercolour and sculpting with clay and recycled materials.
“It is really unreal to be this far away on the other side of the world and also I have been such close friends with these guys for about two years now and it’s incredible to meet them in real life, it’s amazing, it feels like a dream,” she said.
