It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Brolga – the Darwin-born artist soaring to new heights
Words by Alley Pascoe
It started on the footy field at Cobourg in Arnhem Land. Tom, then a “tall and skinny” 14-year-old, was on a camping holiday there with his family, kicking the footy around with the local kids. They started laughing at the lanky lad from Darwin. “You got legs like a Brolga,” they teased him. “Brolga Legs, Brolga Legs.”
The name stuck. “We all thought it was really funny, and from then on my family’s nickname for me was Brolga Legs,” remembers Tom, who was born and raised in Darwin before moving back and forth between the Territory and Queensland from the age of 10. “My earliest memory is of seeing heaps of dragonflies outside of Berry Springs, where we lived. My mum told me it was the first day of the dry.”
Above: Tom, 10 months old at home in Berry Springs with the family dog Smithy
Below: Tom spent much of his childhood catching Barra and living a typical Territory childhood
When Tom closes his eyes now, he can still see the dragonflies; he can also smell the scent of smoke from a fire burning in the distance and taste the juiciness of the mangoes his dad started growing on their property. His was a traditional Top End childhood. For generations, Tom’s family ran pubs in the North; his great aunty was the infamous publican Mayse Young, of Pine Creek Hotel fame. Even after relocating to Queensland, the Territory kept calling Tom and his family, and they’d move back every couple of years for a stint. It was on one of the long road trips through the outback that Tom first discovered his talent for drawing. “Mum used to make us little fun packs for the car, usually with some pencils and paper, and I remember drawing a jet fighter plane and feeling really confident about it. I realised I might have a knack for it,” says Tom, now 37 and based in Northern NSW.
Above: Brolga X Target Collaboration where he created a collection of murals for Target’s new Upper West Side location in New York City.
From the long, straight highways of the bush to the city streets of Brooklyn, Tom kept drawing. It was a hobby, at first. He taught himself graphic design and enrolled in illustration classes while on a three-month tourist visa in New York. “I was in the class and I just felt completely at home, like I was where I should be, doing what I should do,” reveals Tom, who returned to New York to study art full-time. “I fully committed to it, and knew I was going to try my guts out to make it [a career in art] work.” The year 2015 marked the great mural boom in Brooklyn. Tom was in the thick of the action, painting walls and putting up street art. He needed a name, a tag, an alias for his creative endeavours. Brolga was born. “I shortened my nickname ‘Brolga Legs,’ and started going by Brolga,” he says. “It was nice having that connection to my roots overseas in America.”
Above: OpenFile, China’s first illustration festival, Brolga made two giant sculptures from classic characters in his collection, the crocodile and tiger.
Location: West Bund Art Centre. Shanghai, China
Just like it had done when he was a lanky teenager, the name stuck. Today, the name Brolga is synonymous with Tom’s signature style of cool characters, bright colours and high energy. In recent years, Brolga has taken flight, with his work taking him everywhere from Beijing to Bhutan, California to Melbourne Central, and Sri Lanka to Shinjuku. “I find travel really inspiring, exploring new places makes you see things with a higher sense of detail,” says Tom, who has collaborated with big-name brands including Nike, Lego, Apple, Jaguar and H&M. “My friends still see people wearing my H&M collection when they go overseas to Asia. It’s crazy!”
Above: Brolga X H&M Collaboration put together a summer ‘23 collaboration collection for their stores throughout Asia.
Above: Brolga X Nike Collaboration – In mid-2023, Brolga became the artist in residence at the Exclusive Jordan Space at Nike Melbourne Central.
With world domination complete, what’s next? “The dream is a big installation-based exhibition, a solo show with experiential elements. I think something like that would be really fun,” says Tom, who also has hopes of returning to Darwin at some stage for the Darwin Street Art Festival.
“It would be really cool to paint something up there and contribute something back to the city and have that connection.”
Tom’s connection to the Top End runs deep. When he thinks of the young fella drawing jet planes in the back of the car on a four-day road trip, he has one piece of advice: “You can do it if you really go for it and work hard for it.”
To view more of Brolga’s work – http://brolga.com or follow him on socials –
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/studiobrolga
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/brolga/
Above: Brolga X Paradiso Hotel group Collaboration in Ibiza
Below: For the 60th anniversary, Brolga was invited by Dr.Martens to customise a few pairs of their famous 1461 shoes. The shoes ended up in a “DIY Docs” exhibition that visited Sydney, Melbourne, and the Gold Coast.
