Amplify meets Jerry Funkee Skineki

In the week leading up to our Amplify: Forever West event, we’ll be getting to know the artists and small business owners that will be joining us on Sunday.

Meet Jerry Funkee Skineki

Tell us about yourself?

My name is Luke and I’m an artist using all sorts of different mediums and textures to tell stories. My current mission is using creative tools to stay connected and engaged, its become the most important thing to me.

Describe your style and what inspires your art form?

I’d struggle to say I have a style, but that may be because I haven’t really sat down and thought about what my art looks like. Maybe, the lack of cohesion to me is the style. I don’t really like to stick to one thing, I jump all over the place and take from all sorts of things in my world so its hard for me to say its a synthesis of one idea or aesthetic. What has inspired me the most though is the words of David Lynch, I really like his idea of digging deep, ‘catching the big fish’ and following intuition to create. I picked up that philosophy when I was younger and it helped me on the path to creating truthful art coming from passion and intuition, not fear.

I’ve been practicing Buddhism and reading a lot of eastern philosophy. The Tibetan Book of the Dead has been a big influence on me. It’s helped me create a method of creation where I’m more conscious and less controlling of my ideas. I’ve started realising when I create for validation or to just get it done and when I create to truly feel engaged. From that, I just sorta allow myself to be free and do what I need to for the idea. It doesn’t really matter as long as I’m happy and excited.

What motivates you to create?

Making stuff, it doesn’t matter what it is, something to get me into an intuitive deep focus and real raw connection with the world is where its at for me, it’s what feels real. Sometimes I’ll be walking through a supermarket and think, this isn’t life, this is horrible. There are evil structures everywhere, that the people living there have no say or control over and it pushes us into roles that aren’t particularly good for all of us. Having worked in a retail job I didn’t like for many years made me realise the futility in garbage like sales targets and pushing fast fashion and other crap for the good of a select few and the detriment of the community. Working with a community and building for the good of the people around us is what I took from leaving that world. That’s what motivates me.

When looking at your art we feel like we are living in the year 3000 - what makes you get into that digital galaxy-like realm, has that always been the style of art you have been interested in?

I can’t say what interests me about space but a lot of my ideas do take me there. I’ve always been really fixated on what’s behind the curtain and things beyond humans. It’s what drew me to art in the first place, when its doing it’s thing you’re getting ideas from some place we don’t really know. It’s exciting. Digital art is a really exciting idea to me because its half that and half these infinite tools that are beyond you. You can just muck around and you get something really cool, then you wonder how you got there and work your way back.

You can see work from Jerry Funkee Skineki this Sunday at Amplify: Forever West.

Settle in at the Bluestone Church Arts Space for an afternoon of live music, literary performances and art by emerging artists from the Western suburbs and beyond, guest-curated by Rude Baby Records.

Sunday, June 19 ♡ 4:00pm - 6:00pm

⛪️ Bluestone Church Arts Space - 8A Hyde Street, Footscray 3011

More info + tickets here