Botox football mums, underworld burlesque dancers and warty-faced service cashiers – illustrator and designer, Mete Erdogan, took time over dolma, chicken wings and jazz records to discuss Melburbia, his soon to be released graphic novel.
“Melburbia is about two unlikely friends who catch the Frankston line to Flinders Street,” Erdogan explains, generously revealing sketches and proofs of the work, which incorporates fluid jazz-inspired designs and calligraphic middle-eastern styles, with a modern, Australian twist. “During that journey, they develop a common interest in the personal stories of the commuters around them as they pass through each suburb.”
Reverently exploring the stereotypes that connect our city and people, Melburbia’s two central characters are types familiar to any outer-fringe commuter: Ben, the eccentric twenty-something hipster from the ‘burbs, and Jack, “that guy on the train no one wants to talk to” – you know the one.
Whilst the novel marks the completion of Erdogan’s Honours in Visual Communication (Design), you may have already spotted the established trademark of ‘Mete’ around town. He was nominated in the professional Illustration category for the 2011 Qantm Create Design Awards, has designed posters for premier cabaret venue ‘Red Bennies’ and has his bohemian style permanently inked across the chests of Melbourne's robust and rebellious. Given that Erdogan’s home city has readily embraced his smoothly exotic style, Melburbia is sure to serve as no less a success.
His artworks preserve beautifully hand drawn techniques of illustration whilst harnessing the craft of digital refinement. Erdogan incorporates photography and pop culture figures, resulting in humourous, sentimental and nostalgic designs.
By delving into anecdotes of stereotyped demographics in the surrounding pockets of Melbourne, Erdogan avidly examines what’s behind the pretence. Each character infers heightened familiarity by distorting and exaggerating the real and immediate.
“If you make something more obscure or more abstract, people will impose their own image on it,” he explains. From aristocratic private school yard hierarchies in the eastern suburbs, to migrant proprietary in the north and high class glamour-trash just south of the Yarra, he presents stock characters prevalent in the reality of an everyday Melbournian with unmistakeable precision.
“If you make something more obscure or more abstract, people will impose their own image on it,” he explains. From aristocratic private school yard hierarchies in the eastern suburbs, to migrant proprietary in the north and high class glamour-trash just south of the Yarra, he presents stock characters prevalent in the reality of an everyday Melbournian with unmistakeable precision.
Imposing a slight giggle at Melbourne’s eccentric and eclectic, Melburbia pokes fun at our shared views of how things have come to be and “what makes [Melbourne] tick.” But it also invokes pride, collective self-reflection and inquisition of the societal development of our city and the prejudices that prevail. Whilst the finished product is yet to be released, Erdogan’s Melburbia is a beautifully crafted work; an endearing and investigative visual narrative of cultural formations, paying homage to historical beginnings and modern perceptions.
Melburbia is officially launched October 13 @ 7.00pm at the Dear Patti Smith Gallery – The Paterson Building: Level 2, 181 Smith Street, Fitzroy, as part of the Monash Honours Exhibition. For updates on Mete Design & Illustration, see www.metedesign.blogspot.com.
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