After two weeks, Dark side of the Road, is coming to close. It’s been a great show and absolutely amazing to be part of Art Month. If you couldn’t make it, I’ve posted images of them all here and the ones that haven’t sold will be up on Saatchi Online. Continue reading Dark side of the Road, the complete suite of work
This has to be one of my absolute favourite times of the year. You can almost feel the zappiness in the air as artist’s around the country wait to see if their work will be shortlisted for the Archibald, Wynne or Sulman Prize. I love how it’s so contentious and there’s always a lot of snootiness and declarations of artistic wowserism. I got so … Continue reading Is that a little bit of Basquiat in the Archibald’s this year?
I was lucky enough to stop by Ben Quilty‘s exhibition at the National Art School. Ben was the offical war artist in Afghanistan, commissioned by the Australian War Memorial. His works are staggering in scale and paintwork. It looks like he’s taken great slabs of paint and smeared them across the canvas. It makes the paint very meaty, very chunky and made me want to … Continue reading Why you want to bite into Ben Quilty’s work, just mind the nipples
At home, I don’t mind being disorganised or messy, as you would have seen from my kitchen photos earlier on. But when I’m in the public eye, I like to look like I know what I am doing, even if that’s not the case. That’s why last night I sat down with the gallery plans for Gaffa Gallery and painstakingly make a scale replica of … Continue reading An organised artist: is that an oxymoron?
There’s only one week to go before the opening of Dark Side of the Road at Gaffa Gallery. If you can make it on March 7, please come along for a drink and chat between 6pm-8pm. It’ll be lovely to see you. For those of you who can’t make it, here’s a selection of the 10 works that will be in the exhibition and what … Continue reading Art Month sneak preview: Dark side of the Road
I’m red-faced even as I write this. I thought it would be a great idea to write my ‘to-do’ lists on index cards. It works fairly well, I can shuffle through and do the things I feel like doing without having this long list staring at me. The dumb part of the idea was thinking it would be fun to photograph myself with the card … Continue reading Why dumb ideas should die. Oh the shame!
Here’s the last of my series of Dark Side of the Road. This landscape is quite near my house, it’s a dam by the road on the way into town. I quite like the dark earth and bright sky. But the more I look at it, the more I feel something is missing – or is it? There’s a great quote from the 1993 film … Continue reading Is it nonsense to take art advice from a 1993 movie?
The kitchen is a mess. There’s no question about it. I have a studio, so there’s no reason for the kitchen to look like this, but I work better in this space. The light is great, I’m close to hot buttered toast and endless cups of tea. The dog is just outside and I great great views to the fields to north and the changing … Continue reading Why kitchens are so inspiring (and messy)
When you’re working on a piece, sometimes it doesn’t go as planned. Sometimes it goes horribly wrong and the more you try to fix it, the worse it gets. In your head you’re thinking, Should I kill it? Is it dead already? Then the other half of you is going, If I give it a bit more love, maybe it can be saved, maybe I … Continue reading Kill it, love it or f#%k it, struggling with art
It’s been blazingly hot in Australia lately with temperatures pushing 40C (100F) and bushfires blazing across the countryside, decimating the landscape and taking stock and houses with it. It felt weird to be painting while fires were burning not far from me, a little bit like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, but I was on stand-by with the Rural Fire Service and have a very … Continue reading Fiddling while Rome burns
Ray Monde 