About

Popper Box a collective of local artists with backgrounds in illustration, design, fine art, comics and software engineering. Since their formation in 2007, Popper Box has created artwork with an ethic of playful experimentation and accessibility, including a live painting marathon, murals, public art, car park façades, video art, photography and light based art, digital drawing interfaces and a self-published art book.

Popper Box members are:
Haline Ly, Kevin Vo, Matt Huynh, Wil Loeng, Tina Tran, and Tak Tran

Haline Ly
Haline Ly was born in Suresnes, France and migrated to Australia in 1986. She is currently working at Symple Creative, specialising in illustration and graphic design. Her work has been published in Traffic (Rotovision UK 2007), De Fish Magazine (BELGIUM 2007), Collaborative Autobiography (2006), Kleft Magazine (2005) and featured on the online hub We Are The Image Makers and French portal Many Things.

Haline was a QANTAS Noise Soya finalist in the pictures category (2005) and her art has been exhibited in Sydney, Berlin and America. She loves working with children and hopes to write a book one day.

Kevin Vo
Born in Vietnam, Kevin came to Australia in 1985 as a refugee with his father and older brother. Studied Graphic Design at the Sydney Institute of Technology, Enmore Design Centre, Kevin has been working in the field of Graphic design and Visual Arts.

Kevin has exhibited his works in three major exhibitions for young Vietnamese artists, held at the Casula Powerhouse (Creating Paradise on Earth); Liverpool Region Museum (Vietpop: Emergence) respectively; Casula Powerhouse, Co-Curator (The Fall of Saigon - Collected Fragments of Post 75 Generation).

Kevin is creative partner with Haline running Symple Creative. In June 2008, Symple held their first solo show of photographs at the Japan Foundation titled NEOSYDNEY + NEOTOKYO.

Matt Huynh
Matt Huynh is a Sydney based comic creator and illustrator. Matt's graphic novels span a diverse variety of genres from surrealist fantasy to polemical essays, dramas and autobiography. His comics work has received recognition from Ledger Award for Excellence in Australian Comic Arts and Publishing, the Australian Cartoonist's Association, ABC and Sydney Morning Herald. His inky, energetic brushwork has appeared on magazines and prints to clothing, accessories, health resources, tattoos, film, performance projections, vinyl toys and dolls.

When he's not at the drawing table, he can be found conducting instructional workshops, public presentations, exhibitions and live art demonstrations. Matt was the the 2008 recipient of the Design: NSW Travelling Scholarship, awarded by the Powerhouse Museum, British Council and Arts NSW.

William Loeng
Will was born in Sydney. He attended the University of NSW - College of Fines Arts, where he majored in graphic and textile design. He has taken part in collaborative exhibitions including From Here, Sincerely (2007), Extra Cheeese (2007), Copy Cats 2 (2007) and Fields of Conversation (2007).

Will's works have appeared in shop windows and interiors, magazines, websites, clothing, posters and an upcoming album cover. He is currently working as a graphic designer and illustrator.

Tina Tran
Tina is an abstract artist who works in the traditional boundaries of painting and drawing. Her style is reminiscent of surrealist artists James Gleeson and modernist Georgia O'keeffe.

In 2003, Tina's work was exhibited at the Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre as part of the Art Express Exhibition. In the same year her work was exhibited at the National Art School after she completed an intensive course in both drawing and painting. Afterwards, Tina completed a degree in Business at the University of Technology Sydney from which she graduated in 2006. Recently Tina concluded a short course in drawing which specialised in exploring self portraiture at the COFA.

In joining the arts collective Popper Box she is exploring new forms and ideas of art making with her peers which she can incorporate into her own art. Tina is currently studying Fine Arts at COFA, majoring in sculpture, installation and performance.

Tak Tran
Tak was born in Colchester, England. Having left England early on in his life, however and moving to Sydney's Western suburbs, he primarily considers himself to be Australian. He has completed a Bachelor of Software Engineering/Arts in which he received First Class Honours. He has also been a Research Assistant at National ICT Australia for 2 years, where he co-authored several research papers, one of which was accepted in the 2007 International Conference on Software Process.

Currently he is working as an IT programmer in a Sydney based software company, and developing a couple of yet-to-be launched web projects in his spare time.

Some softare applications he has built or is in the process of building include an online e-commerce system, Internet mashups using online APIs from Google and Yahoo, a Facebook application, a virtual self-navigating vehicle and a 3D driving simulator.

His university degree and work captures the spectrum of things he is most passionate about - ranging from human computer interaction and usability design, web development, sociology, culture, history and software development process.