I’m going to say it right now, I love Dan Kyle. He’s a young guy, living in the mountains taking an obsessive look at the Australian bush around him. To be honest, it’s not the man I love, it’s the artist. He paints trees again and again and again. The pale trunks of eucalyptus trees like ghosts stalking the landscape. They’re silent witness to what’s … Continue reading Is Dan Kyle the next Arthur Boyd?
There’s something truly audacious about creating a movie about Vincent Van Gogh that is animated in a painting style mimicking his own. It’s an endeavour that’s setting an incredibly high bar, it’s something that’s almost impossible to pull off, yet in my head I want nothing more than for it to succeed. The whole idea of seeing a world as imagined through the lens of … Continue reading Bringing Vincent Van Gogh back to life
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
How our childhood lives affect us as adults – there’s always a child-self inside us. Continue reading It’s for your own good
You can’t control what goes on in your head. You don’t know where inspiration comes from – or when it will come. If you try to rationalise it, it often vanishes. The only way to capture it is to get it down, get it out, splay it across a canvas, scribble it down onto paper. For the last few years, I’ve been working from the … Continue reading It’s not pretty, it’s not comfortable, but it’s mine. A room of one’s own.
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
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
I’ve decided to go back to school and learn to draw all over again. After spending 20 years in the mad world of advertising, my drawing skills became institutionalised. They became kind of pictionary-esque quick-draws to get an idea across as quickly and simply as possible. It’s a joy to step back into school, at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra and pick … Continue reading Back to basics, re-learning to draw
It’s nothing much to look at. A few words in a column relegated to things to do to fill in lazy Friday afternoon. But for me it was a big deal, huge. Being invited to showcase my work in Goulburn Regional Art Gallery (GRAG) as part of ‘A Snapshot’ series meant so much to me. Not only did I get to share gallery space with the … Continue reading What is smaller than matchbox but can move mountains?
If anyone knows anything about Sidney Nolan, they know his Ned Kelly series: an Australian bushranger immortalised in enamel on hardboard, many painted on the kitchen table of Heidi on the outskirts of Melbourne while Sunday Reed made steaming cups of tea and writhed in the bedsheets. I thought I knew the works of Nolan. I was wrong. One wing in MONA is dedicated to … Continue reading A mammoth work of staggering brilliance: Nolan’s Snake
Ray Monde 