Rona Green 2015

RONA GREEN

Chancing Your Arm 7 – 26 July 2015

AU S t R A L i A N GA L L E R i E S MELBOURNE

AU S t R A L i A N GA L L E R i E S MELBOURNE

invites you to the opening

RONA GREEN Chancing Your Arm Tuesday 7 July 2015 6pm to 8pm 35 Derby Street Collingwood ViC 3066 Artist talk: Saturday 18 July 2015 2pm to 3pm Current until Sunday 26 July 2015 Open 7 days 10am to 6pm t 03 9417 4303 derbyst@australiangalleries.com.au australiangalleries.com.au ronagreen.com

top left: Mica 2013 pencil and ink on paper 20 x 15 cm Left: Jaspre 2013 pencil and ink on paper 20 x 15 cm Right: Dirck De Cock 2015 acrylic on canvas 137 x 96.5 cm

Submission Magician 2014 hand coloured linocut 56 x 76 cm edition 30

RONA GREEN ChANCiNG YOUR ARM

Over the past 20 years Rona Green has developed

patchwork of tattoos and body markings that only a

a lexicon of hybrid creatures that are instantly

tattoo aficionado could attempt to decode.

recognisable as the product of her outlandish imagination. Green has adapted a style of portraiture where human and animal physical features are blended to embody a host of fictional characters. their identity is denoted as much by the various tattoos arranged on their stark white expanses of skin, as it is through a menacing tilt of the head, or the steely glint of a wonky eye. through her skillful manipulation of crisp lines and simplified shapes, Green depicts some highly memorable personas.

Green writes riddles upon the skin of her inventions.

Drawn from numerous sources she assembles tattoos to imply something about their owner. From tribal body markings of Borneo, the prison tattoos of Russia’s criminal class, to the popular flash designs readily available in tattoo parlours – each is carefully selected to suggest a backstory behind her figures.

Green intentionally allows the viewer to speculate on these shady histories, granting plenty of room for individual interpretation. While with a hefty dose of

the origin of each of Green’s prints, drawings,

the absurd, her exaggerated characterisations (that

paintings, or soft sculptures (which she refers to

reveal the artist’s love for b-grade horror films and

as poppets) start occasionally with an animal she

cheesy pop culture) contribute to the playfulness

has met, but most often with a character she has

inherent in the work. this diffuses the darker, human

invented. there are a myriad of sources that inform

stories behind her troubled entities, as the viewer

these fanciful entities, but they all seem to originate

may ponder how they got that scar, or lost that

from the periphery of conventional society and hint

limb…

at various subcultures. Freaks and geeks, baddies and hoons – Green has created a universe populated

Marguerite Brown

exclusively by social fringe dwellers. their otherness

MAArtCur

is indicated not only by the impossibility of their

April 2015

anthropomorphised animal/human forms, but by the

RONA GREEN

Above left: to right Vilém the Villain 2013 hand coloured linocut 76 x 56 cm edition 23 The Zulu 2014 hand coloured linocut 33 x 26 cm edition 33 Brett 2014 hand coloured linocut 38 x 28 cm edition 40 Mr Correct (Hank) 2014 hand coloured linocut 56 x 48 cm edition 23 Cover: Shitehawk vs. Dirck ‘Foo-Foo’ De Cock 2015 hand coloured linocut 72 x 108 cm edition 17

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