I drank too much. Like many people, when I’m nervous, I drink. Just like on opening night of Dry Your Tears at Stur Gallery. If you popped in and I blithered at you, please forgive my nervy, rambunctious, crazed-faced bewilderment. In the fog of booze, I did have a little eureka moment. Standing there, I was surrounded by all these deeply personal experiences from my … Continue reading When private tales go public #art #collage
I started this series almost on a whim. Experiences as children sharply determine who we will be as adults. As we mature, we become better at masking those childhood emotions, we build a stronger exterior to smooth the bumpy ride, but underneath, within us all, is still the little boy or girl, never quite believing where we are and what we’re doing. Continue reading Dry your tears: the child within us #art #collage
Art for art’s sake is a beautiful idea – but artists have to eat. Few of us have generous benefactors to lavish funds upon us, so a sale means we can keep going. Selling work means we can buy new art supplies, sales mean we can secure a space in a studio or artist-run-initiative (ARI) and sales mean we can keep doing what we love. … Continue reading SOLD, SOLD. Why sales validate artists.
The Blake Prize is kooky. It’s essentially an art prize for works with a religious bent but its parameters are very, very broad. This year’s shortlist includes two men masturbating framed by poo and a convoy of military vehicles with Jesus as the driver/cargo. I love how the judges have the balls to show some gruesome imagery and there’s a glorious mix of emerging … Continue reading Pictures framed with poo and other spiritual experiences: Blake Prize
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
If you’re an artist or writer or musician or anyone who dabbles in creative pursuits, you’ll be very familiar with the bouts of self-doubt. Especially in the early stages of any new work.My collage has been evolving dramatically over the last few years. Early stages involved making work out of existing images from magazines – umbrellas, telephones, screaming mouths. Then I moved to creating images … Continue reading Lost or heading in the right direction?
In April, I received a commission for a horse. It’s totally outside the scope of what I normally do and because it was a commission for someone I know I was debilitated by the request. I was torn with all manner of stupid things like what size do they want it? What colours would they like? How realistic do they expect it to be? In … Continue reading I’m on a horse
Ray Monde 