The Space Cowboy
Our Artist of the Week: The Space Cowboy
We dare say that if you had been the holder of more than 50 Guinness World Records – enough to make you your country’s most prolific record-breaker – and had collected a host of awards as a performer, and even had statues of you featured in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museums (OK, you’re probably getting the picture by now), you could be forgiven for not having too much spare time on your hands to pick up a paintbrush. And as for winning genuine acclaim as a visual artist beyond hobbyist dabbling, well… you’re probably approaching the territory of “impossible”.
Not that the daring Australian known worldwide as The Space Cowboy – or Chayne Hultgren to his nearest and dearest – is intimidated by notions of the “impossible”. Indeed, you could say he’s thumbed his nose at it more than a few times – in the process, winning himself over 20 million hits on YouTube and a legion of fans and followers around the globe.
Seasoned at death-defying – but also more than a little handy with a canvas
Many observers will already be familiar with The Space Cowboy because of his spellbinding live performances and stunts.
A natural exhibitionist who was already wooing locals of his native Byron Bay with his unconventional skills before his ninth birthday, the multidisciplinary artist has gone firmly global over the years, pulling off captivating feats of sword-swallowing, shooting streams of electricity from his fingertips, chainsaw juggling on a giant unicycle, blindfolded arrow catching, and speed painting. It’s no wonder he has proved such a reliable small-screen crowd-pleaser down the years on such shows as Australia’s Got Talent, Officially Amazing, and Outrageous Acts of Science.
🎞 The Space Cowboy Showreel 🎞
Now, at this point, you might be thinking… aren’t those folks at Addicted Art Gallery generally in the business of promoting a slightly different form of visual artistry? This is a fact that brings us neatly to one of The Space Cowboy’s most impressive feats of all.
We are, of course, referring to his somewhat more recent explosion into the fine-art scene with works that embody every inch of the derring-do spirit he regularly exhibits on stage – and it is fair to say that collectors from around the world have already shown their appreciation.
As the man himself puts it about his creative approach: “I paint with bold emotion and a high-speed wet overloaded brush style, using gravity to create the image. My art presents a monochrome duality to express a balance between life and living and death and dying with a daring glint.”
🎥 Lights! Camera! Action! 🎬 Believe Dragon: Behind the scenes with The Space Cowboy
The Space Cowboy’s artworks aren’t for those with a slightly more… sedate taste. Expect, instead, all the vibrancy, boldness, and angularity that characterises his persona as a performer, with paint applied in rapid, expressive gestures, and the traditional boundaries between abstraction and figuration, and between the every day and the absurd, joyfully blurred and upended.
It is an approach that serves up immediacy and dynamism but will also keep on captivating buyers of his works through finer details that they will notice and appreciate for months and years.
Left: "Enjoy The Ride", 2023 | Right: "Gruf", 2023
Could you be the latest owner of some of The Space Cowboy’s in-demand artworks?
Through collections ranging from “Memoirs of a Sword Swallower” – which, as its name implies, takes the viewer on a journey through the spectacle of circus culture and the artist’s own life – to “Once Upon a Time”, which reinvents and distorts fairy tales for modern times, The Space Cowboy reveals himself as a creative person of sensitivity, complexity, and perceptiveness. There are touches of dark humour, allusions to popular culture, and other elements that touch on the foundations of what it is to be human and alive.
Left: “Cross My Heart”, Memoirs of a Sword Swallower Series | Right: “Teddy Bears Picnic”, Once Upon A Time Series
And he knows how to select the tools and methods required to communicate those visions in a manner compelling to audiences. If you are one for artworks incorporating quick-fire layers and lines, diffused fields of spray paints – The Space Cowboy’s art will keep on disclosing to you their stimulations and charms.
Why not ask us today about whatever new favourites have captured your eye and imagination? That way, you will be able to engage more deeply with works that challenge human conscience and boundaries as profoundly as the performer himself does every time he appears on stage.
"Tie Ger", 2023
"I like to create work that has a strong reaction, whether it be humour and puns or just intrigue. This painting is meant to make people smile, laugh and reflect on their own lives." ~ The Space Cowboy
Written for Addicted Art Gallery by Precise English