© Pint of Science, 2024. All rights reserved.
10 Years of Pint of Science
in Australia!
Dr Emma Rehn (she/her)
Dr James O'Hanlon (he/him)
Keith Stanley (he/him)
Artist Biographies
Dr Emma Rehn is an Australian research communicator and science illustrator, with a research background in archaeology, geosciences, and palaeofire (ancient bushfires). She specialises in communicating complex scientific concepts through colourful cartoon-style graphics. Emma was selected for the highly competitive ABC TOP 5 Science media residency in 2022 and she recently completed a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage.
Dr James O’Hanlon is a writer, illustrator, and artist from Australia with a background in science research and communication. He is an award-winning science communicator and was the 2021 recipient of the New England Writers Centre Varuna fellowship. His debut popular science book “Silk and Venom: The incredible lives of spiders” was released in 2023 through New South Publishing. He illustrates non-fiction children’s books and his popular science writing has appeared in ABC News, The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Geographic, The Conversation, and Biosphere Magazine.
Keith Stanley is a Sydney-based artist specialising in illustration and digital art. His signature style involves vibrant colours with influences from street art, comics, music and film, and his work has sparked the interest of musicians, tattooists, conventions, and theme parks. Keith has developed his own brand, Heavy Mental Art, where he sells paintings as well as designs for a variety of items including clothing, skateboards and ukuleles.
Artist Rationale
2024 Festival Artwork
To commemorate the 10th anniversary of Pint of Science Australia, this year's festival artwork celebrates and pays homage to the artwork created for the previous year's festivals. It is a collaborative work between three previous artists-in-residence: Emma Rehn, Keith Stanley, and James O'Hanlon. The fantastical landscape they have created encompasses the huge diversity of disciplines studied by Australian researchers, from deep ocean to deep space and everything in between, which are represented at Pint of Science each year.
You may recognise familiar animal mascots from previous festival artworks, such as Misty the endangered armoured mist frog from the 2022 festival artwork by Emma Rehn. Misty was the primary mascot in 2022 and has brought her wetland habitat from her original pint glass with her as she explores space this year.
The soaring humpback whale is a new addition to the animal lineup this year. Humpback whales are symbolic of animal conservation and growing interest in whale conservation since the 1970s has been touted as kickstarting the modern era of environmentalism. Leaping humpback whales also feature as a recurring theme in James O'Hanlon's artwork.
Quintin the space koala was used as a mascot alongside a few other animal characters in spacesuits in the Pint of Science online event in 2020. He's a gatherer of knowledge and enjoys new adventures. His spacesuit also represented all of us being apart but together due to the world at the time in 2020, and Keith wanted to bring him back for Pint of Science's 10 year anniversary. Australian animals and nature are often featured in Keith Stanley's mural work.
Space was a key part of the 2020 and 2023 designs, and all of the artists agreed to collaborate on a single design set in space incorporating aspects of their original designs. Although each of the artists has a unique style, they easily expanded on each other’s ideas as the work developed to create a single harmonious artwork.
Keith created the original concept sketch, with James and Emma providing drawings of their whale and frog mascots, respectively. Emma expanded on Keith’s concept, added a few elements, and finalised the layout. James unified the different artistic styles with his work finalising the lines of the design, followed by flat colours by Emma. Keith then brought the design to life with vibrant shading and final details.
Support the Artists
Find out more about this year's stellar lineup of artists and support their work by connecting with them online.