Nick Mitzevich, Director of National Gallery of Australia opens What the Wayfarer Saw

The exhibition, What the Wayfarer Saw, at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery charts an 86 kilometre odyssey on foot from Goulburn to Braidwood over six days, sleeping by the roadside, in pubs and country homes along the way. The measured and slow pace of walking allowed the artist to deeply connect with people and place.

This beautiful and brutal journey brought to the fore the artist’s personal experience of queerness within the framework of regional Australia and involved a process of vulnerability, exchange and openness.   

Underpinning the work is a Homeric narrative, revealing insightful perceptions of home after a long time away. Monde described the pilgrimage, ‘like Odysseus in Homer’s epic poem, I encountered obstacles and setbacks, met strangers along the way and was tempted off course.’

In his opening address Nick spoke of the naked figure in the landscape exploring vulnerability and compared this vulnerability that’s evoked in the works of other artists like Arthur Boyd.

See the artist interview and more works at raymonde.com.au

A cradle of yellow buttons, collage and synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 3mx1.5m, Ray Monde

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s