Brett Bower is an award-winning Australian cartoonist, animator and visual performance artist internationally known as 

The Sand Artist.

For more than a decade, Brett has developed and performed a distinctive form of live sand animation, creating constantly evolving images by hand using sand on a backlit glass surface. Working to music and storytelling, Brett transforms one image into another before a live audience, creating an immersive performance that combines animation, illustration, visual storytelling and live entertainment.

His Sand Artist performances have taken him across Australia, Asia and the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, for corporate events, conferences, major entertainment events and international productions.

In 2025, Brett Bower joined internationally recognised British television presenter and entertainer James May on his live stage production, Explorers: The Age of Discovery.

Brett toured internationally with the production across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Kingdom, performing as a live visual artist alongside James May.

The production combined storytelling, history, humour and live visual entertainment. Brett's contribution brought his distinctive visual-art techniques to the theatre stage, creating artwork live as part of the performance.

The tour represented a significant expansion of Brett's Sand Artist work into international theatrical performance, placing his live visual art within a professionally produced touring show presented across four countries.

Working alongside James May, Brett combined sand art, cartooning, animation, visual comedy and live drawing to create an interactive visual component to the production.

The 2025 tour established Brett not only as a corporate entertainment performer, but as an international touring visual artist capable of integrating his original artistic techniques into major live productions.

Disney / Disney+ Australia – The Mandalorian

THE OFFICIAL STAR WARS AUSTRALIA / NEW ZEALAND FACEBOOK PAGE.

published a post identifying the work as a “The Mandalorian inspired Sand Art piece created by Australian artist Brett Bower.”

https://fb.watch/v/2LOQ-ABSc/?mibextid=wwXIfr&fs=e

In 2019, Brett appeared on Australia's Got Talent, performing his Sand Artist act before the show's judges and a national television audience.

His performance received an enthusiastic response from the judging panel.

Shane Jacobson described Brett as having a gift and praised the way he used sand to create a story and take the audience on a journey, concluding:

“I could have watched all day.”

Nicole Scherzinger praised Brett's ability to bring the sand to life, describing the performance as effortless and graceful.

Lucy Durack praised the generosity of the performance and said:

“I was hooked from the get go.”

The performance remains documented on video as part of Brett's television career and Sand Artist portfolio.

In March 2014, Brett Bower joined Bill Bryson's Australian live stage tour, Many A True Word: An Illuminating Interview, featuring the internationally acclaimed author in conversation with Australian television presenter Ray Martin.

The production toured major Australian venues from 14–22 March 2014, including the State Theatre in Sydney, QPAC Concert Hall in Brisbane, Riverside Theatre in Perth, Adelaide Entertainment Centre, Canberra's Royal Theatre and the Plenary at Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. The tour was produced by Lateral Events as part of its Intellectual Entertainment series. 

Brett's artwork formed part of the live theatrical presentation. His projected sand art was used throughout the show, providing a visual storytelling element alongside Bryson's conversation with Ray Martin.

A contemporary review of the production by WeekendNotes, written by Geraldine Massey, specifically describes the show as being punctuated by “projected sand art” by cartoonist Brett Bower. The reviewer noted that although the combination might initially seem unusual, it “worked a treat.” 

The review also confirms the full touring period as 14–22 March 2014 and lists the remaining performances across Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and Melbourne. 

Brett's involvement brought together two very different forms of storytelling.

For Brett Bower, the production represented an important international stage credit, bringing his Sand Artist and live visual storytelling work into a major touring theatre production alongside one of the world's best-known travel writers and authors.

BILL BRYSON — MANY A TRUE WORD
An Illuminating Interview with Ray Martin

Brett's Sand Artist career extends well beyond television.

He has performed for corporate audiences and major events throughout Australia, Asia and the Middle East, creating customised visual stories and performances for individual organisations and events.

In Singapore in 2011, Brett performed a specially commissioned sand-art presentation as part of an Australian business conference in Asia. The performance was a collaboration with musician Floyd Vincent and incorporated a specially commissioned 12-minute instrumental composition.

Brett has also undertaken Sand Artist performances and commissions in Saudi Arabia and throughout Asia, establishing the act as an international corporate entertainment offering.

The Sand Artist act is fundamentally different from conventional recorded animation.

The audience watches the artwork being created live, stroke by stroke and image by image.

A scene appears.

Brett transforms it.

A character becomes a landscape.

A landscape becomes another story.

The image disappears and something completely new emerges.

The performance combines Brett's more than four decades of experience in animation, cartooning, illustration and live performance into a distinctive visual storytelling discipline.