Brother Merle is the creative name of Gabriel Lalande, a Montreal-based illustrator and skateboarder. Having studied graphic design in Montreal and San Diego, he developed a cartoon world full of absurd characters, everyday observations and deliberately strange humour. Skateboarding has long been part of the visual language behind his work.
His artwork has appeared in collaborations with Foundation, Skateboard Café, Bones Wheels and April Skateboards. The recurring older characters and exaggerated situations make his drawings instantly memorable. They also show why skate graphics can be much more than decoration: a deck becomes a place to tell a joke or build an entire imaginary scene. Brother Merle celebrates the connection between illustration, real skating and not taking life too seriously.
