Meet the 18-Year-Old That Paints Boards for the Best Surfers in the World

Of course, Biolos’s work isn’t just inspired by her acrylic-stained workshop. If you’ve ever seen one of Ho’s YouTube edits (which obviously you have), you’ve likely seen him atop fun-looking shapes with bright, psychedelic-looking artwork. Or maybe you caught a glimpse of ‘CT rookie Erin Brooks driving neon-tinted flames through tubes during a WSL event. Either way, while her dad’s boards remain a constant canvas, Biolos’ artwork is varied—part punk, part daydream—that’s impossible to miss in lineups in San Clemente and beyond.

When we called to chat, Biolos was working on a batch of boards for Cole Houshmand to surf in the next event. In between brushstrokes, she talked with us about how she got her start as a tiny grommet, what it’s like working for her dad, and the process she uses to create rideable pieces of art for the best surfers in the world.

I’m sure it had something to do with your dad, but tell me about how you got into doing art on surfboards.
My house is like 500 feet from our shaping rooms, so when my mom had to run errands, she’d drop me off with my  dad while he was working at the factory. My siblings and I would just run around,  write on the walls, sweep, and do boring stuff. One day, my uncle built me this little rack because I couldn't reach the surfboard racks, gave me some cups of paint, and I just went crazy on some surfboard blanks that the machine messed up.

How old were you?
I was only 6. I started painting boards for people when I was 7. The first people I painted boards for were Coco and Mason Ho. They're like my dad's fifth and sixth children. He loves them so much and they were probably just like, ‘ohh this is so cute, a little girl painting boards, she should paint on ours. ’ We had an old painter named Terry who taught me so much, like color theory and how to mix colors. But it was my dad who would paint with me for hours. He's a really great artist. He probably painted most of the boards then, actually. After I did them, he fixed a lot of things.

What about now? Does he still poke his head into your bay and offer pointers?
Yes, all the time. His office and his shaping room are in the other hallway, but he's always sneaking in and getting a look at what I'm doing. He gives me a lot of tips, like what I should change and making sure everything looks good.

What kind of tips does he give you?
I'm friends with a lot of the surfers I paint for now, but before I was, he knew them a lot better than I did. With Griffin, for example, sometimes I used to get a little too girly with my designs and he’d tell me it needs to be more sharp and manly, or I need to use more masculine colors like red and black. He kind of tells me to do things depending on what the person would like because he has worked with them forever.

How much can you fix after you’ve painted directly on foam?
It depends. You can't take paint off, but now, after years and years of experience, I can fix things by adding more paint. If I spill a droplet, I could change it into a little leaf or something. You gotta get creative and add things to where you've messed up right, but there's no going back.

Has there ever been a time when you really messed up and new boards had to be made?
Yeah, there have been a couple of bad ones, actually. I was painting 10 boards for Carissa one day and 10 boards for Griffin. My dad told me that I had 10 boards for Griffin in my room and then 10 for Carissa outside of my room to paint the next day. So I went in and didn't look at the order form and painted 10 boards for Griffin with Carissa's paint job. He didn't re-make the boards, but he had someone else paint over them, but Griffin hated the paint job, so that was a problem.

You do this while you’re also studying art at Laguna College of Art and Design. What specifically are you studying?
My major is graphic design, so I'm doing computer work in Illustrator and Photoshop and then kind of utilizing it in my surfboard work too. I don't know if you saw Cole Houshmand’s boards recently - they had like crazy American traditional tattoo designs on them with tigers and lions and stuff – but they took me about 4 hours each. Basically, I learned how to use Photoshop to paint on my computer, which would take about an hour, and then send it to Board Lams, a brand that prints art on fiberglass inlays for surfboards, to speed up a lot of my time.

Interested in any other type of artwork?
I used to like fiddle around with watercolor and acrylics but I realized that painting on canvases is so hard – I'm so used to the feeling of the painting with acrylics on foam. Anytime I have to paint something on canvas, I cannot do it for the life of me, so my dad had a 10-foot stringless epoxy longboard blank cut for me to paint anything that needs to be photographed. I have 2 of those 10-foot boards in my room with all kinds of skateboard artwork, snowboard artwork – even the U.S. Open artwork I did last year.

Who has been your favorite surfer to work with?
I like working with Mason Ho a lot because he never tells me what to do. I base my artwork for him off of a lot of other artwork that I'd seen him getting from guys like Drew Brophy, who would do these super crazy neon rainbows. I kind of embraced that but then took it to a whole other level of like psycho-crazy trippy rainbow stuff [laughs]. They’re also really quick to do but still really eye-catching. Occasionally, I'll spend a couple of hours on his boards – like I recently did this batch of trippy fish – there was a bonefish, an Agler fish, and those took a while.  

Are there any artists that you find inspiration from?
I've always drawn inspiration from surrealist work. Like Salvador Dali, for example, and also M.C. Escher. If you look at their artwork, they’re realistic looking in their painting style, but what they’re actually painting is surreal – like melting clocks, elephants on stilts, etc. It's like taking two opposites and combining them.  Similarly, I like the idea of painting a fish but with neon rainbows – something that looks real but isn't possible.

How would you describe your own art?
I don’t want to say messy but I get the job done. Like right now, I’m painting nine boards for Cole so I can't spend hours and hours and hours on these boards. They're due tonight, and if they don't get done tonight, then Cole doesn't have boards for the next event. It's not the cleanest, most perfectionist painting ever because if I did that, no one would get surfboards. By work is very free-form, go with the flow, no strict rules.  

Any interest in shaping?
I would be interested to learn, but I’m trying do more behind-the-scenes stuff, helping more with the clothing design, designing the shirts at Catalyst, designing logos for our coffee shop or board model logos.

Do you want to work for your dad full-time when you're done with art school?
I'm very grateful to work for him and it’s a super cool job, but I don't want my end game to be painting boards. I'd like to be a graphic designer for a bigger company like Adidas and work with my dad on the side.

How many boards do you do in a week?
Fully depends on events since I mainly paint boards for pros. For example, I had to paint like 65 boards a couple of weeks ago in one week, but then I might go as long as three months without having to do a board. So after today and yesterday, I think I’m gonna do about 18 boards. Which is like a pretty good rush.

In the '60s and '70s, surfboard art was such a big part of surf culture and now it seems like everybody just has white boards. Do you think there will be a resurgence of people experimenting with art on their boards?
I hope so. Every time I go to the beach, I don't see much art, but most people have to pay for their surfboards, and when you add art on it adds so much more money, up to 200 bucks just for a regular paint job.  So I understand why a lot of people don't have art, but when I see people who have painted their own boards, it definitely is cool.