Artists statement

Trevor ‘Turbo’ Brown (1967-2017) was a Latje Latje man who was born in Mildura and spent much of his early life on the streets. He was adopted by Herb Patten and his wife Aunty Bunta, and moved to Melbourne where he took up boxing, rapping and breakdancing.

‘Turbo’ completed a Diploma of Arts (Visual Arts) from RMIT University in 2005 and his first solo exhibition at the Koorie Heritage Trust in Melbourne was a sell-out. His work is now held in many significant collections. Turbo painted animals because, as he told Uncle Herb, when he was a teenager living on the Mildura streets and the Murray riverbank, the animals were his only friends. Using bright colours and bold outlines, he usually worked on a large scale and painted quickly using unmixed acrylic paint. His engaging pictorial style and distinctive creatures from the Dreamtime made his works pulsate with an irresistible and syncopated beat.