Flying Oxygen

Flying Oxygen is a working studio and gallery space based in Hobart, Tasmania.

As part of the space there is a sauna, hairsalon, and visitor accommodation.

Artists Overview

Tom Deams

Tom Deams is a U.K Graffiti Artist now residing in Hobart. Since first experimenting with spray paint in 1988 he has created pieces all around the world. Eventually re-locating to Hobart from Bristol in 2018 to become involved in the lively art movement and to produce more large scale work.

Around 1990 during the early stages of his career Deams received a police caution for painting graffiti on the local community centre in the next village where he was brought up. In 1994 he completed 100 hours of community service and paid a £350 fine for painting the whole side of a train. These days Deams’ work has been commissioned from various clients and his outside work has been held within the streets of London, Bristol, Berlin, Barcelona, Bangkok, Phnom Penh, Melbourne, Sydney and other places in-between. Deams has also exhibited work in Nottingham, Bristol, Berlin and Melbourne.

For some graffiti writers it is the process rather than the final outcome that is the motivation behind their craft; and to watch Deams (Deamz/Deamze) honing yet another complex, multi-layered, semi-abstract burner to within an inch of fracturing, exploding, and flying off the wall into orbit, is to see a man truly in love with the act of painting itself (coincidentally deamo means ‘to be passionately in love with’ in Latin). And who can blame him? As any self-confessed aerosol-addict will tell you, propelling multi coloured spray paint onto a wall all day is, at its deepest, a form of moving meditation; relaxing, exhausting and hugely rewarding, all at the same time.

Now well into his third decade of painting, Deams’ style has reached that plateau where it is uniquely, unmistakably, and utterly his own. Whether painting his cartoon-like, beveled-edged straight letters; super complex retro-futuristic burners; or indeed, those open abstract spaces that seem to explore the insides of letters; a Deams painting identifies itself at a hundred paces. Deams is a ‘style writer’ in the truest sense of the phrase.

Felix ‘FLX’ Braun 2014.

Today Tom works alongside his wife Gina at Flying Oxygen Studios in Moonah, Tasmania.

Gina Deams

Beyond the contrasting conditions of a youth spent in Leeds, Sheffield and Sydney as an art student, the lifelong works of Gina Deams have ultimately been shaped by the opposing powers of dark and light, tension and tranquillity and by Mother Nature’s ability to combine the chaotic with the clinical.  Graffiti, Blue Note LP sleeves and the merging of far-removed techniques like textiles and music, were all sources of inspiration when honing her skills, before she went on to  be inspired by Hundertwasser, Marimekko and Patrick Heron to name but a few.

Once a humble, selective florist with an enviable client-base that featured an array of Australian A-list celebrities, as well as assignments for the Royal family, Hobart-based Deams effortlessly endeared VIPs with her unassuming approach. This held her in good stead and as her career path evolved, it led her to become an artist and collaborator who worked with prestigious contemporaries such as Psyops, Australian Fashion Week and L’Oreal New York, where top teamwork-derived results were produced by adopting Deam’s open creative process.

The opportunity to combine fine art with floristry afforded Deams some invaluable insight into her organic creations and instinctive output. Whilst creating less flirtatious works that would signify her coming-of-age as a conceptual artist, designer and illustrator. Throughout every textured design, whether floral of otherwise, Deams still preserves her admiration and unapologetic reverence for spontaneity.

It could be said that Deams, whose love of graffiti inadvertently led her to failing the 11+ exam, owes it all to a dedicated art teacher and the monetary gift of encouragement they left upon their passing, so as to nurture her obvious talents.  Today, Deam's audience remains appreciative of both her line and brush work, which thrives on the freedom she grants herself when working.  Deams' atmospheric creations continue to reflect her love of mark making and texture currently guiding her long-serving curiosity with all things strangely beautiful and sprinkled with glitter.