Bio & Rationale
Brisbane artist and tattooer Sidney Herbst makes work that aims straight at the gut – drawing, poetry, and images of humans as part of nature rather than apart from it. Emotion drives the mark-making; the pictures ask questions only the viewer can answer. For Aether’s Chocolate Kelp Stout, we paired Sidney’s raw line with a beer that’s equally surprising – lush cocoa meeting briny edge – a combination that shouldn’t work but absolutely does.
Sidney often writes poems alongside the visuals, building a dialogue between text and image. That openness – vulnerability given form – is why the label lands so hard. It’s art as admission and beer as companion, both honest, both memorable.
Sidney writes poems to compliment his works, and so we're honoured to share with you, On My String of Hearts by Sidney Herbst...
"When you find it If you find it You will hate it When the world condenses And all you can feel, is the gospel of your heart When even the morning rain now serves your god It won’t let you go It will tear and claw at you It will take your mind, that solemn sanctuary It will take its time Perhaps more than you have Till it’s all you ever had Emaciated Redundant Hopeless Waves of misery Followed by more As waves do Yet each crest of madness glistens And each crash calms Receding back to blue When you find it Find her, find him You’ll see for the first time It will perpetually blossom immortalise the lines on which you blame the sun And make purpose and frivolity sing their final song It will accept you It will give you all you need Till it’s all you have Passion, a vile word Love, a beautiful lie Truth, an admission of surrender And truth is the only beauty It’s the only thing you could never explain And will never need to".
