Deathproof Bar

If you don’t know about Deathproof - now you do. I could talk forever about it because it’s a dream come true, my largest body of my ‘artwork’ & I love it so much …but will spare you (for now) buuut if you are interested (now) then click here to head over to the website ...and learn about us & how and why we changed the Australian hospitality game …and one of the first bars to ever ‘pop-up’ internationally within our first year of trade.

Because I essentially painted everything I could both inside and outside the bar, I suspect this could get either messy or boring really quickly so will try my best to share only my favourites and break it down as clearly and best I can for you.

So as mentioned …and as I’m sure it’s now incredibly obvious, I painted pretty much every surface I could - or thought would look cool. So starting out the front, I painted the signage up on top of the roof, the main signage, the ceilings, the outdoor seating barrier and main signage on the building. And because I knew painting the windows would look shocking - I got the decals made instead.

As I’m sure you have also noticed the ceiling by now …and I hope you like it because I am sure I did permanent damage to my neck and back with this MF. From memory, it took a good 50 hours by brush to complete - and the “D” on the front of the bar took about 1.

As mentioned above, the main wall of the bar frequently changed. Why? Because I realised that it was a potentially amazing marketing tool/billboard that we could capitalise on - which was part of our concept and why I loved the venue so much to begin with ...and why there’s so many variations. Before getting onto them, here’s a few random bits and pieces from around the bar.

The Bathroom was one of my favourite parts of the bar. I'm not sure if it’s because I had never seen anything before like it …or because we went to the effort and expense of making it an extension of the bar - either way, I loved it and the selfie booth we built as a ‘waiting room’ worked a damn treat - and wouldn’t have been as BADASS without my good friend Yas Vo coming in and leaving her (lettering) mark in there, too.

I told you I painted the whole damn thing. This wasn’t for me though, this was for the staff. They all worked their asses off and didn’t deserve to hang out in a non-art filled grungy area for their much deserved breaks.

Location: Brisbane, QLD

Photography: Millie Tang, Kurt Ian, Ron Caldecutt, Declan Roache & Jeremy Lewis