
Artist: Anthony Lister
Title: Spider Woman
Medium: Giclee Print
Size: 21 x 26 cm
Edition: 30
Price: $290 AUD
Anthony Lister is an Australian painter and street artist born in Brisbane in 1979, celebrated for his raw, expressive style that fuses high and low culture into visceral contemporary narratives. He studied at the Queensland College of Art before moving to New York in the early 2000s, where he apprenticed under pop surrealist
Ron English, absorbing techniques that blend graffiti energy with classical figuration. Working across canvas, wall and found objects, Lister builds surfaces through layered aerosol, oil stick and acrylic, allowing drips, smears and gestural marks to remain as evidence of speed and emotion.
His imagery centres on masked or distorted figures, often female, who appear to wrestle with inner turmoil or societal expectation. Eyes are frequently obscured by splashes or bold strokes, suggesting vulnerability and defiance simultaneously. Colour is applied with urgency, hot pinks and bruised purples colliding against asphalt greys, creating a visual tension that mirrors the chaos of urban life. Influences range from Francis Bacon’s existential anguish to the raw mark making of Jean-Michel Basquiat, filtered through a distinctly antipodean lens that celebrates both beauty and decay.
Lister's work has been exhibited internationally, from London’s Saatchi Gallery to public walls in Berlin and Los Angeles, while his paintings are held in private collections worldwide. Despite commercial success, he continues to paint illegally, believing that the street offers an unfiltered dialogue with the public. Whether rendering a six-metre wall or a small canvas, Lister seeks to capture the fragile moment when personal emotion spills into shared space, reminding viewers that vulnerability can be a source of strength and that art, like life, is most powerful when it remains unfinished, honest and free.