About the Artist: Sbuone

Looking for an update on the 'Track to the Future' mural project? You're in luck as our second mural of the season honouring Jumbo the Elephant has been completed by the talented mural artist Sbuone! The purpose of this portion of the project is to create a scavenger hunt for original elephant murals throughout the city - with the latest thought provoking art piece located at Railway City Brewing Company.

Artists find inspiration all around them, and while in town checking out our awesome city, Sbuone popped over to the Elgin County Railway Museum. While on his adventure, he came across one last empty side of a boxcar waiting to be added to the mural collection of St. Thomas. We are so excited to announce that Sbuone was able to complete one of his own murals on that boxcar! We owe a huge thanks to staff and board at the Elgin County Railway Museum for making this happen.​

​Profile: Sbuone

​What inspired you to pursue becoming an artist?

I always had this need to draw, to express what I felt through line or color. When I was a teenager, I started to spray paint on walls and I liked the relationship with the concrete world, I was already spending time in front of a screen drawing digitally, and to paint physically outside always made me feel good.

At that time, graffiti and murals were not that popular, the term "street art" didn't even exist. When we were painting on a wall legally, people would call the cops on us, everything was considered as graffiti. Eventually this dynamic changed throughout the years.

In 2010 while working on a contract job as a digital artist, I burnt myself out working too much and not taking time off. It changed my perception on many things, and I started to draw directly on paper without any draft, which had a deep impact on my style. The same year, I took a couple of months and travelled to draw and paint walls, meet people and discover other cultures. I also did a lot of life drawings of people and places that nourished my visual world.

Eventually my style evolved and people started to notice depth in my work which has led me to paint more murals and have recognition as an artist.

I draw my inspiration from what I find timeless in humanity. Art, representation that transcends time, space and cultures. This is what inspires me. From Modern abstract art to old artefacts from distant civilisations.

How do you make your art/murals?

I am drawing a lot in preparation for any mural, searching for ideas and feelings. Then if it's not improvised on the spot, I start by tracing the sketch, filling up with colors, and making my outlines. While I am doing this, I am constantly readjusting things, whether it's the color combination, or shapes, or an element, I am working like that until what I see seems balanced. It is quite instinctive. The technique I enjoy the most is tracing lines with whether a spray can or a brush, this is what I find the more fun. but all moments of the creative process are fun.

What are your thoughts on the Jumbo story?

When I've read the Jumbo story I felt sad for him, this poor Elephant was poorly fed and was already in really bad shape before he got hit by the train. Somehow it was for him a liberation, after all those years of captivity and mistreatment.. On the other hand, It was really interesting to paint him and I am happy that I could give him a tribute in that way. I also integrated a little bell around his neck, which is used on an sacred elephant that perform rituals in some parts of the world that I encountered through one of my travels. I felt it was a way to give him back more dignity.

What inspired you for your boxcar mural?
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I often have an abstract approach. Depending on the surface I paint, I will likely try to find what fits on the spot. I have done a lot of sketches of figurative objects and animals, I considered painting the birds I was seeing all around, but I felt that those boxcars are usually seen from far away and that I should paint something beyond the figurative. I used the space to play with composition and bring out something organic, something alive, that could be an organism or simply a lifeform that has its own dynamic growing on this steel square object.

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Artist Bio

Growing up in France, Sbuone was influenced by all the art and nature he could see around him, he began to draw fiercly from a young age. He started experimenting with digital painting when he was 15. Moving to Montréal in 2003, he pushed his own creative path towards drawing, painting walls and more recently through tattoos. Highly influenced by the art of ancient civilisations, symbols and collective consciousness, he’s exploring through his unique style, representation of his feeling in a timeless way. He reveals shapes and meanings through the unconstrained act of drawing and painting.

​Learn more at www.sbuone.com

​The ‘Track to the Future’ mural project is coordinated by Railway City Tourism in collaboration with Andrew Gunn Consulting and young & free press with generous financial support from the Estate of Donna Vera Evans Bushell.​​