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)
Like most artists, I’d rather spend my time creating artworks rather than work-working but unfortunately my art is not self-sufficient. Thankfully, I’m in a position where I run my own business from home, The Wood Agency, which is little advertising agency which specialises in art-based marketing. We recently developed this visual identity for The Studio, an annex of the Art Gallery of South Australia. Essentially, … Continue reading Art-work versus work-work. Who wins?
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
A lot of artists don’t give their works a title and it really gives me the pip. Walking around galleries around the world, I’ll come across a spectacular artwork, I’ll walk up and get closer look, see who created it and what it’s called. Artist, Untitled, 1972 For me, not giving an artwork a name, is like not naming a child. A title gives an … Continue reading Why all artworks titled “Untitled” should be destroyed.
I know Billie Holiday’s song Strange Fruit is harrowing, devastating and political, so I am hesitant to use its title for this work. On the road to the local dump, plastic bags catch on the wind and collect in the hawthorn trees along the road. It’s strangely disturbing and beautiful at the same time. I guess using a title like Strange Fruit brings with … Continue reading Would Billie Holiday be upset if I titled this “Strange fruit”?
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?
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 