Last night I attended the opening of Kale Frost’s Brickography, an exhibition of LEGO based images and MOCs at the Artboy Callery in Greville St, Prahran.

Kale (@frostbricks on Instagram) is a Melbourne based brickartist and photographer who began his Instagram 365 day challenge a couple of years ago and forgot to stop after twelve months. With a keen eye for whimsy, coupled with fantastic building skills, Kale’s MOCs have previously been featured on the Brothers Brick, Blocks Magazine and as inspirational images featured in the LEGO® Life App.

For this weekend only, he has filled the walls of the ArtBoy Gallery with both his own impressive body of images, as well as images from some of the notable LEGO Instagrammers around the world including Brett Willson (@brett_wilson), CJ Simmons (@harleyquin), Luigi Priori (priovit70), Phil Korn (@phil_korn), Arvin Coloma (@nivrana), Andrew Morrey (@cheepjokes) and others.

 

Kale’s photography features a lot of minifigures in both LEGO based and environmental situations. I find his images always evoke a smile for me. His building style is both character based, with brick built characters abounding, as well as a number of  MOCs evoking memories of Saturday Morning Cartoons in the 70’s and 80’s. With an all out Justice League battle around the Hall of Justice in the front window of the gallery, as well as the X-men based ‘Sentinal Down’,  and a Batman inspired music box, Super hero based work abounds. Steve Reynold’s Bat Cave adds to the superhero material.   Other MOCs of Kale’s include his Fast Food vignettes, tied together into a small layout a sulphuric crested cockatoo, with some neat parts usage for the crest, and possibly one of the largest Angry Birds layouts I have ever seen. Kale has also produced two large scale mosaics: one of Audrey Hepburn and the lenticular ‘Worlds Finest’

Kale has also recruited MOCs from some of Melbourne’s AFOL Community, including Gabriel Thomson (qitah) , Ben Andrews and others.  If you are feeling inspired during your visit, there are some playtubs of mixed LEGO elements to help facilitate your own creative urges.

I would like to comment on the presentation of the photographs: Kale has used a variety of framing and mounting techniques including stretched canvas, oak frames and board mounting of images.  As many of these images have only been seen previously in an Instagram feed, seeing them at full size, beautifully presented is  always a beautiful experience.

I always enjoy seeing LEGO based images blown up,  and I found the sense of joy, curiosity and whimsy they evoked inspirational at the end of a long week.

Entrance is free, and all of the images are available for sale. There is also a selection of smaller prints and greeting cards of similar images available.

If you are in Melbourne this weekend, the show is well worth a visit: the ArtBoy Gallery is located at 99 Greville St, Prahran, and open from 10 – 5  Saturday November 18; and 10-4 on Sunday 19th November.