Jeff Raglus rates that fact that he hasn’t had a ‘normal’ job since 1985, amongst his major life achievements. Highlights of his career include making music in the 90s with Melbourne cult band The Bachelors from Prague, working with the The Black Sorrows too, and 10 years drawing for Mambo.
Jeff Raglus failed art in high school twice and his art teacher said his cartoons were rubbish. For him this was a defining moment in which he accidentally and subconsciously joined the world of outsider artists.
Ragee left school early, bought an airbrush, spraypainted surfboards and joined a rock band. All along the line, in between hitting the road on tour, he printed t-shirts and created posters.
Eventually he joined the cult Melbourne punk cabaret band The Bachelors From Prague, back in the late 1980s. He started painting with other members of the band leading to his first group and solo exhibitions, which quickly turned into sell out phenomena.
Around this time he also joined iconic Sydney based graphic company Mambo. He worked there for most of the nineties – when Mambo was still cool, and continued to hone his unique self-termed Surf-Folk-Pop art style.
He has written and illustrated several children’s books, of which Schnorky the wave-puncher is the most well known. This children’s story about a nonconformist surfer dude was turned into a play by Melbourne based Arena Theatre Company in 1996 and toured around Australia and overseas for eight years.
These days Ragee mainly concentrates on painting and playing his own original music.
He will be appearing at Retrospect Galleries 4pm Saturday August 14, with some brand new paintings and a special free performance of his two person band Victoriana Gaye, as part of their East Coast Tour, presenting beautiful folk music from the Freak Folk of the Wild West Coast of Victoria.
If you can’t make it along you can still check out his work, on exhibition until Wednesday. for further information contact the gallery on 6680 8825 or go to www.retrospectgalleries.com.
