A trip to the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, Tasmania is the closest you’ll get to entering Hades. In a good way. Carved into a mountain, you drop into the dark depths of the museum and then flail your way back to the surface. This photo is looking down into the complicated web-like stair structures that emerge from the darkness. A … Continue reading A dark journey into sex, death and the purgatory in between
Jack Featherstone is an amazing man. He spent a great deal of his life travelling the Australian outback, giving dental care to remote communities and investigating the bacteria of the mouths of Indigenous Australians. His paintings are wonderfully naive, but what I love the most are the stories that go with them. It made me realise while it’s fine to make pretty pictures, the works … Continue reading Art with a story is better than art for art’s sake
I didn’t know Bea Maddock’s work until I saw it on the walls of the National Gallery of Victoria. There’s something soul-destroyingly sad about her work that I can’t quite put my finger on.The statement as you enter the gallery is touched with melancholy, about an artist who tries to crack the art world, doesn’t quite make a living, retreats home and hones her craft. … Continue reading Walking into an eerie sadness with Bea Maddock at the NGV
I’m looking at the months ahead and they look like a gaping yawn, a wide open mouth ready to devour me. After a relaxed Easter, I’m in danger of dropping into that post-exhibition dark hole. I know what I have to do next, I just have to do it. But at the moment, there’s an unfinished work on the easel and I’m doing what … Continue reading Is video art real art?
Ray Monde 