Drew Brophy Surf Artist

Looking at this video, I’m really stoked that I’m surfing again and getting stronger. Just a year ago, I still needed the supplemental oxygen to breathe. This week I’m surfing Cloudbreak in Fiji. I’m not surfing as good as I normally do, and sometimes it gets me down. But then I remember where I was a year ago, I didn’t know if I’d even surf again. I’m forever grateful to all the people who helped me recover. It took many. I’m giving a talk about my recovery on June 22nd, a sincere expression of my gratitude for all who helped. This includes family, friends, healers, medical professionals and the surfing community - all who conspired to bring me back to life and who helped @mariabrophy get through it. Link in my bio for details (click Brophy Art Gallery events) Video by @farias.vdon #recovery #miraclestory

In early 2022 I made this video for my future, healed self - in case I made it out alive. Be Grateful today, for everything in your life, it is a gift. ⚡️ On this day 3 years ago I was told I was going to die. It is the day I died. I went on a journey very few could comprehend. Like an astronaut I left this world and found myself reunited with all-that-is, in time that felt like forever. Like waking from a dream into the true reality of what and who you really are. You are an extremely powerful creation machine. ⚡️ It was like a great remembering and I was ultimately pulled back to this world by people who loved me, for all of you. You are not the body, you are the energy flowing through it. Coming back to this dead body was the most brutal experience a person can have, like a savage resurrection into a decomposing pain- filled biological machine. The power of light, which we all are, had the ability to keep this body alive through the darkness of my situation. Through the immense love ❤️ and compassion of others, I was guided out of this darkness back to life. We are all angels showing up for one another. I am forever grateful to all my angels. On this day be Grateful for this opportunity to have this earthly experience, raise your awareness to those around you today and be grateful. All the beautiful people, your angels. Be present for them. Find gratitude in the very small things, a sip of coffee, the smell of the fire. A simple breath of air. I had everything taken from me on this day and in a way given a perspective that not many can appreciate. I had to fight for my life and the simple joys that most take for granted. Many focus on what they do not have, but in reality you have been given so much, you have been given everything. We are all-powerful creation machines, limitless, if only we could remember. I was sent back to remind you. It is all so beautiful. Forever grateful to you all. 📕Check out my wife @mariabrophy Memoir she wrote ✍️about this one year period of time and how I came back from it - on Amazon called COVID A LOVE STORY by Maria Brophy @covidalovestory #neardeathexperience #nde

These photos are not very flattering but I have arrived at a day that I thought would never come. Two years of relentless struggle to regain my body and my life. My goal was to be strong again, to be me again. From the hospital I watched @kellyslater win Pipeline masters as I lay paralyzed in my bed, here we were the same age, his dreams coming true while my worst nightmare was happening. I was so stoked for him but I was devastated for me, facing life in a nursing home on life support. I thought I would never surf again. Now here I am, about to board a plane for Hawaii 🌴 for my birthday, with a swell coming to Pipeline. It is the 2 year anniversary of my release from the hospital. So many have contributed to this miracle of me being able to surf real waves again. 🏄‍♂️I am forever grateful. Never give up! The story is so unbelievable, after this milestone, I can begin to share the journey of my Will to Live, what I did to get here and how I beat the odds. My wife @mariabrophy is amazing, she truly saved my life. @bodybalancebykim came to the hospital to give me treatments and saved my feet and legs from permanent damage. @ashirley143 got me off the ventilator after 70 days of drowning in fluids. @nicole.manago.mcphee taught me to walk again, cheered me up and got me off oxygen so I could surf again. @johnsonchiro worked on my broken body eventually got me strong enough to get in shape. @mario_rossi and @dscperformance_pt stretch helped me rebuild my body. We worked on balance and coordination, lifted weights for the first time in my life. My friend @matt_biolos did so many things during this time to help me, least of which was to shape me a new board to celebrate this achievement. I hope I get a few big waves on it, I hope there is a photo of it, so everyone who participated in this miracle can smile with joy. Life is Good, better than ever. Forever grateful Drew #nevergiveup #pipeline #lifeisgood

Anyone out there know where this original painting is? “Drew’s Dream” It was painted on Masonite in 1997. Just released this vintage prints collection. I would live to know where it is. For everyone who got a print congrats, there are a few left if you wanted one. I am really having fun with this vintage collection celebrating 30 years of surf art, more great stories and art are on the way. Life is good! Drew #surfart #drewbrophy #lostart

I am so grateful that I get to work with so many great athletes and companies. Meet @kei_kobayashi a professional surfer from here in San Clemente. He is known for charging barrels and blasting airs. I have know his dad @masaki_kobayashi1 for many years, with brother @shaw.kobayashi they represent the Japanese surf stoke here in town, they all rip! Kei is one the best surfers in the world, he competes on the @wsl.qs he qualified for the Challenge series this year for the opportunity to join the @wsl Championship Tour. We are all very proud of him. This week he and I worked together on some boards for @drinksolti where they went to the @thepalmspringssurfclub . My wife and I love Solti so it was perfect, we are all about healthy products. Then Kei and I worked on boards for his next competition in Tokyo. We did @lostsurfboards @lostsurfboardsjapan that will pop when he blast some of his giant Ariels and deep tube rides. Follow him and wish him luck on his journey. I love being part of his story, even if it’s only making his boards look cool. Life is Good Drew

Celebrating 30 Years of Surf Art I never had formal art training but I always had a wild imagination. As a child, my mother let me crayon all over my bedroom walls. I would draw giant battles with dinosaurs 🦕 fighting soldiers, trains crashing into spaceships flying through imaginary worlds. On rainy days, I’d dig through piles of National Geographic magazines and get lost in all the crazy photographs. My sister Julie had a huge record 🎵 collection and I remember being blown away by the artwork as much as the music, like Roger Dean’s art on YES albums, Frank Frazetta’s on Molly Hatchet’s and Rick Griffin’s on Grateful Dead albums. My brother had surf magazines and I was impacted by the exotic surf spots and the cool surf 🏄‍♂️ art by Bill Ogden, Jim Phillips, and Rick Griffin. Though I never knew the names of these artists until I was much older, their art influenced me greatly. I never imagined that someday I’d become an artist like them. When I first started painting, my art was not very good. I had no training and it showed. Mostly I just made giant messes painting on surfboards — usually my own. But creativity ran through the family. My dad was artistic, my sister Julie could draw, and my godfather, Uncle Jerry, was a famous tattoo artist in Philly. So I guess it came from somewhere. “Drew’s Dream” is a painting that I’m re-releasing today. It perfectly reflects that raw creativity. Technically, it wasn’t painted very well, but the killer ideas were there - and ideas are everything with art. I painted it in 1997 on a scrap piece of masonite in my friend Rob’s garage in San Clemente, and somehow it became one of the first images to ever make it onto a t-shirt for Lost Surfboards. From there, I just kept painting. Thousands of surfboards later, I slowly got better by painting on anything I could find. To this day, I’m forever grateful to my mom. After raising four other kids, she somehow didn’t mind that I turned the walls in the house into my own personal art gallery. I hope you enjoyed this story, Life is Good, Drew PS-I just released 25 signed prints of Drew’s Dream 👆 link above #30yearssufart #drewbrophy

Happy Birthday @mariabrophy , thank you for sharing your life with me. I love you! If Maria has touched your life, send her a happy birthday message, life is good!

Wanna be a beta tester? Get on my “inner circle” email list (👆🏽link above) and I’ll send you access. #riptide #surfgame

I wanted thank the team @bingsurfboards for recreating my older brothers surfboard. My brother Tommy taught me how to surf on his board. He had it custom made from Bing when he was kid, the original board was 5’0”the smallest board in our town, it was passed down to many kids in our community until it eventually bit the dust after 10s of thousands of waves were ridden on it. Tommy was telling me stories of those early days and then I just happened to run into the boys at Bing during SurfExpo. That’s when my family and I came up the idea to have his board recreated for his birthday. Well it came out amazing, I love surfboards especially all the fine craftsmanship and love that goes into them. I think my brother is afraid to wax it up because it is so nice. It was shaped by master shaper Matt Calvani, check out @bingsurfshop in Encinitas, it’s full of beautiful boards. I imagined my brother’s excitement when he was kid on this board, discovering the gift of surfing, second to last photo is a grainy photo of him surfing on it. I am forever grateful to him for sharing surfing with me, it forever changed my life. What a gift. He looks pretty stoked and ready to glide down some waves. Life is Good Drew Thanks @chalmerslester for the photo of you with the board, I used it to recreate a version of brother as a little boy with it, I guess AI does have some uses. Pretty cool!

Behind every surfer is a team a craftsman who can make boards in record time, passing the board through the steps with precision. My part is at the end of the process making it look cool, but I am also giving the least amount of time, expected to make a Home run for the team. So I spent my Saturday knocking these out. We loaded them straight into the board bags and now @gianbernini has to fly with over twenty boards to Oz for the contest at Snapper. Huge team effort. I want all the surfers to know that we all ride with you, ever win every loss. Every great ride is celebrated, you are getting tubed for all of us. Enjoy the ride. Drew @lostsurfboards @matt_biolos @griffin_cola @caspianator

@drewbrophy painting a few more @lostsurfboards for @griffin_cola - these are headed ✈️ to Australia today for the World Surfing League contest at Snapper Rocks. 🏄🏽‍♂️🏄🏽‍♂️🏄🏽‍♂️

Whyland 36” x 36” framed canvas. This was the first canvas I ever painted with Posca paint pens, in 1997. Since then I’ve painted thousands. The original painting of Whyland was one of 100 of my artworks at my retrospective exhibition at the Myrtle Beach Museum of Art in 2018. I just dropped limited edition prints of this art for the first time and already shipped half of them 😎 I’m Celebrating 30 Years of Surf Art And telling true Stories Behind the Paint (1996–2002), Over 60 Days. This is the first to be released. Hope you enjoy 🏄🏽‍♂️ #30yearssurfart #drewbrophy