What the Australian bushfires taught me about making decisions in a time of coronavirus (COVID-19). I’m one of those people that likes to be prepared. I check the exits on a airplane. I feel under my seat to make sure there’s a life jacket there. So when the mountains burst into flames behind my house in November 2019, I planned to leave. I love my … Continue reading Too late to leave. Stay in place.
Sometimes art goes bad. Look at her face. The horror. This is not intentional. I wasn’t trying to create an image of a women who had been burnt in an accident. Or a woman trapped in a disfiguring face mask. I was trying to create a woman with attitude, cigarette in hand, giving the viewer a withering glance. I didn’t have the right colour papers … Continue reading What to do when things go horribly wrong (in art)
There’s people quarantined in their homes, on cruise ships and in hospitals. International flights are cancelled, schools are shut and people are in limbo. People who look Asian are being watched more closely, people are moving away from them on buses. While cases of the newly named COVID-19 are about to hit 50,000; I am also living in isolation, trapped in Vancouver for very different … Continue reading Trapped in Vancouver, thinking about the coronavirus COVID19
Studio space in Seattle is really hard to come by. I was fortunate that Clare Johnson had landed a residency and would be out of the state for three months. She was looking for someone to look after her space in 57 Biscayne and I was keen to look after it. We hit it off and is kindly letting me work in this beautiful space. … Continue reading Found a studio at 57 Biscayne – a room of one’s own
Taking risks sometimes pays dividends. The risk is worth the reward. Other times, they fail terribly. Like at my high school dance. Important lessons from risk-taking The school dance is beach themed. I thought it would be a good idea to make breasts out of coconuts and pink socks, wrap myself in a hibiscus tablecloth and apply red lipstick. I remember looking at myself in … Continue reading Suburban LA life for The Other Art Fair
It’s early January and I am standing in the gentle rain outside Blick’s. There’s a man in a glitter top hat reeling off tunes to passing cars. This is new to me. The whole city is new to me and the rain is a joy on my head. I haven’t seen or felt it for over three months. Australia is on fire. It’s burnt an … Continue reading Looking for a studio in Seattle
Around this time last year I wrote to Les Murray, Australia’s greatest contemporary poet, to ask if he would sit for me. His reply was quick and came to me by a postcard from his On Bunyah collection of poems. “Dear Ray, how could I refuse a portraitist from the Krambach side of Burrell Creek who wants to paint me? You are welcome to try! … Continue reading “Hurry, though – I turn 80 this year”, Les Murray’s urgent words to me
Last Friday night, I picked mum and dad up at the Goulburn South Caravan Park and drove them to the Goulburn Workers Club for a quick drink. We settled into a fancy booth that looked out across Auburn Street, where locals were doing mainies. As I came back from the bar with a tray of drinks, my partner’s wildly gesticulating arms collected with the tray, I overcorrected and the drinks flooded … Continue reading What does it mean for an artist to show in a public art gallery?
I’ve just gone through the most excruciating gestation for an artwork that I’ve ever gone through. And I’m still not sure the experience is over yet. It started fairly straight-forward enough. The place I live now is in the Australian countryside, on a river surrounded by vast paddocks grazed by black cattle. Ever since I moved here ten years ago, every now and then I … Continue reading Art is dead. Long live art.
I’m working late into the night on a new series that focuses on the suburbs. It was inspired by a recent trip to Madrid where I saw a lot of works by Picasso at the Reina Sofia – Pity and Terror, Picasso’s Path To Guernica. What struck me about his early works was that they were often limited to a single room, they were painted … Continue reading Quiet terror in the suburbs
Ray Monde 