“Being asked to make the artwork for the two Australian Nuggets releases in 2012 was a big shock to me. I’d just finished the first Gizzard album cover and was still pretty new to designing for bands… I’ve been a huge fan of the original Nuggets compilation and was really blown away to be asked to do it.”
For issue # 2 of Happy Mag, we tracked down the enigmatic Jason Galea – the visual artist behind bands like King Gizzard, The Murlocs, Sunbeam Sound Machine and The Delta Riggs – and probed away.
Jason Galea is one of the few visual artists active in Australian music that is unmistakable. Like a Dali or Escher, his style is instantly recognisable, discerned by colour and shape rather than subject matter. He’s also a tough man to get hold of, splitting his time between working in his Melbourne studio and being on the road with bands. “I’m in Konstanz Germany on my way to Zurich,” says Galea when we managed to track him down. “I’ve also been on tour with King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard through the UK and Europe for the past two weeks.”
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are in many ways, Galea’s main muse. If you’ve seen any of the band’s hypnogogic album covers then you’ve seen Galea – he’s done all nine of them. Right now he’s travelling the world with the psychedelic seven-piece as their visual mastermind, armed with a collection of video samples and mesmeric visual affects that he has built over the years from his involvement in the audio-visual collective Zonkvision…
Read the full piece in Happy Mag issue # 2, which is shipping out right now. You can subscribe here.
Check out some shots from the issue # 2 launch party here.
This is Galea at work – the new video for People-Vultures from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard.
While you’re here, check out our piece on Aussie musicians who are also artists.
