I love now. I love this moment. I love the start of something new. This week I started a new series. A series exploring childhood experiences – one more time – but this time it’s going to be better. It’s going to be better because the more I think about my childhood, the more my memories become clearer and the more I uncover long forgotten … Continue reading What happens next?
Getting a commission is an exciting prospect, being asked to create a bespoke artwork for a benefactor is exhilarating. But it’s also a strange burden. Normally, when I create artworks, it flows, it’s a representation of what in my mind, a story I’m trying to tell, a feeling I’m trying to conjure up. With a commission, it’s not so straight forward. There’s a bit of … Continue reading Walking the tight-rope of an art commission
I’ve often spoken of the serendipity of creativity – how our heads suck in every thing we experience – sights, sounds, tastes, colours, moments and jumbles them up to create something new. Last year, I stopped over in Japan on the way back to Australia for a couple of days to break up the 26 hour flight and it was there I saw wood block … Continue reading What happens when you cross Japan with Australia?
Here’s the thing – getting a commission from someone is always a little bit tricksy. You go from doing whatever you like, whatever is in your head, to creating something for a specific person with specific tastes for a specific environment. Even though many benefactors will say ‘Do whatever you like!”, you can’t not be influenced by them. You want them to like what you … Continue reading Finding your twin is not easy
Having worked as a creative in the advertising industry for 20 years, it was always a bit of a mystery where the creative idea came from. I remember my 16 year old nephew doing work experience with me and he went home after a week to tell his father that for a job I drank coffee, went for walks, sat around and talked and read … Continue reading The serendipitious nature of art inspiration
In a strange way, Michael Chamberlain is responsible for starting my life as an artist. It’s even stranger since we never met, I never sat in his classes or heard his voice fill a room. By chance, I saw Azaria’s baby bracelet in a display cabinet at the National Library of Australia and that simple object brought home the obscene tragedy of parents being charged … Continue reading Rest well Michael Chamberlain, you fought hard for justice
Sometimes I create an artwork that’s a little unloved. It gets turned around to face the studio wall and is kind of forgotten about. I recently came across this work ‘Who pushed Annette?’. When I was about 8 years old, my cousins visited our house from Sydney. My mum and dad were renovating our house. Six cousins were standing in the doorway looking into this … Continue reading Taking another look at forgotten works
How the Other Art Fair changed me as an artist. Taking stock of the somersaulting baptism that brings emerging artists in close contact with emerging art collectors. Continue reading The Other Art Fair Sydney: Ray Monde
Here’s a strange one for you. In 2010, I created a series of artworks about words that sound the same but have different meanings. I called the series Same Same But Different. They were based on odd out-of-sync homonyms like Gulf Golf, Oprah Opera, Poor Paw and Line Lion. I created these at a time of great upheaval, when the world was looking at how … Continue reading Is it up to artists to decide who can buy their art?
In just an hour I set up my works for my new show, It’s for your own good. These works explore experiences from my childhood that inform who I am now. It’s extraordinarily handy having all the works the same size and so expertly framed, because it was a simple case of banging in a nail in the wall and hanging the works. You can … Continue reading Bumping in to M16 Artspace
Ray Monde 