Drew Brophy Painted Your Fave …Lost Surfboards of the 90s
In Tom Wolfe’s “The Painted Word” we read that a successful modern art piece needs to be literary, needs a theory. But any half-wit off the beach can take a single look at Drew Brophy’s art and laugh. Theory? Geez, man. Every barreling and glazed wave is a deep-blue dream jumping off the canvas, foam balls shooting into the screaming sun. We don’t need no stinkin’ theory, man. Brophy’s art is a straight punch to the face.
Over the past three decades, Brophy has distinguished himself as one of the premier surf artists alive, traveling the world funded by his talents, bringing life to every surfer’s fantasies through paint. But, as he describes in his new book, “Painting Surfboards and Chasing Waves“, squaring a life of surfing and art wasn’t easy to swing.
“I remember when I finally thought I hit my stride,” Brophy writes of his first days airbrushing boards in Hawaii. “I had worked a super busy week and had, technically, earned a lot of money. I was so proud of myself. Everyone I painted for had promised to pay me by Friday. I sat all day waiting but not one person came. I was devastated. I waited by the bus stop as it got dark. The bus arrived as I pulled out my change and realized that all I had to my name was $1.40. The bus cost $1. I needed money for food, so I watched as the bus pulled away and I began the long walk home.”
In the beginning, home for Brophy was Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, host to world-class ankle slappers. He spent his days struggling to both finish school and find better waves. When he could, Brophy and his crew ran north to Hatteras, south to Sebastian, or even further to Mainland Mexico to satisfy the urge to ride waves with more power. (Thumb through the April 1995 issue of SURFER, and you’ll see a beautiful photo of Drew wrapped tight in a perfect Puerto Escondido right.)
After high school, Brophy kept pace at his father’s flooring business while finding side work as an artist for local restaurants, surf shops, and a few shapers including Kelly Richards of Perfection. Doubtful that he could manage a living from his art but confident that his talents could carry him further than the summer dribblers of Myrtle Beach, Brophy kept his ears open for opportunity.
“While sitting in a local bar, deep in thought and a little lost, I overheard a guy telling stories about surfing in Hawaii and working in a surfboard factory,” Brophy recalls. “I couldn’t believe it! I jumped in and told him that I paint surfboards here in town. The guy said they were looking for an airbrush artist when he left.”
After a late night call to ProGlass in Haleiwa, Brophy boarded a plane the next day and was gone.
Brophy soon found himself buried in board painting demand, doing jobs for multiple shapers. Plenty of pro boards fell under his brush too, painting pretty decks and rails for heavies Tom Curren, Tom Carroll, and others, sharpening his craft with each new design. Between his hectic work schedule, Brophy managed to spend ample time in the water, too — opportunities to zip into Pipeline barrels included.
Yet the seemingly idyllic life of painting and surfing didn’t provide much exposure—or cash— beyond the Islands. Brophy Struggled to pay the bills and existed on a slim diet of rice. His Hawaiian experience came to an end after a vicious hit to the face courtesy of the reef at Pipe. Months of recovery followed, forcing Drew out of work and back to the mainland.
As he writes in his book, however, Brophy’s misfortune turned to gold. In 1996, he found a home sleeping in a friend’s garage and looking for work in the middle of San Clemente, basecamp for what was really goin’ on. Stewart picked up Brophy painting longboards, paying about $20 a board, which to him was a lot of money. But the gentle airbrush fades required, leftover from the 80’s, wasn’t quite his bag. Brophy had begun experimenting with unique paint pens from the Japanese company Uni-Posca and developed the raw, color-drenched, I-don’t-care-what-you-think style that would define his art. Searching for a new outlet, he walked into Matt Biolos’ shaping room to see that he was also a disciple of Posca pens.
Biolos says, “I was doing similar stuff as far back as ’87. Painting flaming waves, skulls, demons, monsters, mushrooms… rock and roll album covers etc, on Archy’s and Christian Fletcher’s boards. They were getting really big magazine exposure on my (rudimentary) paint jobs. It’s how I first built my name. We used this type of imagery on all our early tees, from ’93 on, as well. As my shaping took over, I no longer had the time to spend hand painting boards. Drew knew we had a history of it, but was not seeing it on my boards much anymore. He figured I would be open to him bringing it back. I was, he did, and he ran with it, far beyond anyone’s previous production surfboard numbers.
“His partnering up with us was really good timing. All the parts were moving well. It coincided with the popularity of our surf videos, like ‘What’s really Goin’ Wrong’ and ‘5’5″ x 19 1/4“‘. These videos brought our name into everyone’s living rooms. Surfers like Chris Ward and Cory Lopez were making a lot of impact on our boards. My shapes were now getting sought after. We had the Round Nose Fish and these two teen phenoms. Drew’s paintings gave the boards a point of difference, at retail, and everything sort of worked together.”
After a quick test of his skill, Biolos brought him on board to bring his color from tip to tail of …Lost Surfboards. If Biolos’ genius with a planer wasn’t enough to hook a surfer on a …Lost board, Drew’s art was the hard sell.
“We were together a lot in the early days, for sure. People thought we were brothers,” Biolos says. “As the business grew, we moved the shaping rooms down the street (where we are now) and the painting moved to a warehouse, up El Camino Real, downtown San Clemente. We raised some hell at night as well. We traveled around the world, building the …Lost brand and our own brands. Peru, Brazil, Europe, Japan. We surfed and had a lot of fun.”
With Mayhem shapes filling racks in shops worldwide, Drew’s work became instantly recognizable in the surf world, doubtlessly sending groms on every coast racing to the craft store in search of wide-tip Sharpies to ruin their boards with. In each of his painted boards, heaving rows of monstrous waves march like soldiers taking a beach, screaming blood-orange suns stretch their angry rays across the sky, cartoonish skulls line the impact zones, laughing. Dripping and tripping down the rails, Drew’s images carried the surf-art genre in a direction that surely would have made Rick Griffin smile wide.
As …Lost Surfboards increased in demand, so did Brophy’s art. Biolos eventually hired a few others to take on the load of board painting, and Brophy began to expand his portfolio, painting canvases, murals, and designs for dozens of other companies, both in and out of the surf world. It’s nearly impossible to go into any coastal store, souvenir shop, or deli without seeing a kiddie boogie board splashed with Brophy’s art.
By 2002, Brophy stopped working for …Lost altogether.
In “Painting Surfboards and Chasing Waves”, Brophy describes the work he and his wife Maria have done since to give themselves that envious symmetry of surfing and art he sought out while still in Myrtle Beach. Their current business, Son of the Sea, focuses on selling Brophy’s original art. But it also does something rare, something generous: Brophy gives away his painting secrets through video and demonstrations worldwide. While many artists might prefer to keep tricks close to the chest, he shares his techniques openly, revealing a simple love of art over money.
Between painting sessions, Brophy surfs at every chance, mainly near his house at San Clemente Pier, Lowers or Salt Creek when it’s good, and even tries to get a couple days at up north at Mavericks and Ocean Beach each year.
Brophy says that “surfing in a giant tube is like being in a time machine. For a brief moment in time everything slows down and you notice every drop of water falling over you.” When you look at Brophy’s paintings, you can see just that: individual spouts of water squirting from the barrel, your eyes following each line of spray shooting from the impact zone like fireworks popping into bursting sunshine, every ray punching the sky. It’s easy to sense the love Brophy has for the ocean through his art.
“The ocean is where I was born and feel most at home, it calls to me.”
“Painting Surfboards and Chasing Waves” gives a great high-gloss look at Brophy’s art through the past thirty years. It’s a proper read that will get you amped to take that drop just a little late and dig your toes hard into the foam as you race off the bottom, pretending you’re front-and-center in one of Brophy’s paintings.