In her street art works, Melbourne-based artist Baby Guerrilla’s protagonists are often in a state of floating. Some of them seem to be in a trance and some in a state of transition or transformation mid-air. Some of them are being held onto by others. What’s common amongst all the stories is that they are completely open to a wide variety of interpretations.
While the street art works seem to take a flight of imagination and fantasy, her paintings are often rooted in intuitions and reality. In fact, some of her paintings have turned out to be a harbinger of reality. I asked BG about some of the portraits she did of lone workers wearing bio-hazard suits – one of them in a local train after what looks like a terribly busy day at work and one alone at a dining table in an artwork titled ‘Last Supper’. I had presumed that she did these artworks during the pandemic, however, she told me, “I was having recurring images about the pandemic back in 2010 and felt compelled to paint isolated people in bio-hazard suits with masks on.” As spooky as that sounds, it’s also a testimony to the intuitive powers of artists and art.
After graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts, BG had anticipated the rest of her life as a painter. Street art started as a hobby for her, but it slowly became a very prominent part of her life. She now sees the two mediums as complimentary. Apart from these two mediums, she also has created compelling work in the form of drawings, installations, mixed-media art, and performance art.
We speak to BG about her work and life: https://thefloatingmagazine.com/people-baby-guerrilla/
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