Introducing – Rhiannon Mudaliar

Rhiannon is an emerging artist who was born and grew up in Dumfries and Galloway. An Honours graduate in Fine Art, here she tells us about herself, her inspirations locally, and her recent projects.

Full disclosure, although the name is a big clue! Rhiannon is the daughter of our Editor and Interim Director, Tabi Mudaliar. In each issue we feature an emerging artist who grew up in this region - a young creative who calls D&G home. We’re a creative region full of creative families! It is only fair that, despite having a Mum who leads DGU, Rhiannon also has the opportunity to showcase her work. We are delighted to include Rhiannon and introduce her to you.

I’m Rhiannon Mudaliar: Artist, filmmaker, event coordinator, lifelong curator, and professional troublemaker! People love a snappy phrase when it comes to describing an artistic practice, and the one I generally deploy is ‘socially engaged, documentative art-film, which seeks to amplify under-represented voices.’ I feel this is a bit clinical for what I’m making, honestly. Photography, poetry, moving image and collage are my mediums of choice. Primarily, I’m in the business of capturing and perpetuating joy.

I graduated from the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design this time last year, and I’ve spent the intervening time developing my creative network throughout Dundee and Tayside, where I maintain a workshop, and a small circle of regular collaborators. While Sun-dee is an absolutely happening city, it’s been important to me to retain my connection to Dumfries and Galloway, throughout my studies and into my career. Growing up around D&G’s creatives taught me art could not only be enriching and enjoyable on a personal level, but with hard work, a viable career path. My creative network in D&G has provided a level of stability to me as I’ve moved forward with my career, through commissions and freelance work, and the fantastic range of funding and support available for young creatives. From my first internship at CAMPLE LINE, working beside Tina Fiske and learning the invisible art of curation, to my time spent working front of house and running tours at Charles Jencks’ Crawick Multiverse, Dumfries and

Galloway’s rich culture of art and design has fed my hunger for beauty, and grown it tenfold.

I’d describe myself as being in the early stages of my careerbut a few years out of the gates, by virtue of being in a sector as engaging and fast-moving as the arts, I’ve already had some really exciting moments.

In 2020, I received my first major commission as a filmmaker. ‘The Full Picture’, a psychogeographical walk paired with two full length interviews with artists of colour based in Dundee, and a short experimental film featuring my reflective poetry, was the largest complete project I had embarked on. Though it feels like a long time ago now, at the time, it felt like my first big break, and remains a piece of work I’m very proud of.

In Summer 2021, I worked on my first feature film set, on location in Wigtown, for Stella (2023). This has been a bucket list entry for me since I was in primary school. However, what you don’t picture when you’re little, dreaming of the great collaborative art of cinema, are the 6am starts, the 11pm finishes, the need for terrible coffee while longing for good coffee, and my word, the blisters! I served as assistant to the Producer (My fabulous mother, Tabitha Mudaliar) and was in charge of capturing behind the scenes photography and footage for the duration of the shoot, booking all of the production’s period vehicles, and day-to day onset problem solving. It was the hardest, most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. I can’t wait to be on my next film set.

In December last year I had the incredible good fortune to be awarded the Creative Dundee Community Ideas Fund for my collaborative project, ‘The Dundee Guerilla Film Festival’. Once a month for the entire year, we meet, never in the same place twice, to share a featured artist’s body of work, screen a relevant film, and share our own personal creative work. Our role: to be facilitators, agitators, and creative instigators! Our remit: to challenge the ethics of copyright law, and encourage the production, dissemination, and celebration of art! The D.G.F.F. has opened a lot of doors for me - introducing me to new friends, wonderful creative and technical collaborators, and brilliant arts organisations doing cutting edge work all over Dundee and Tayside.

As for the present day, I’m busy developing my next major body of work. My degree show project, ‘Record This’, focused on the rituals of queer intimacy within my own friend group. Throughout it, I developed an interest in collage, particularly in reference to expression of gender and self. Now, I’m exploring the medium more fully, using typography and word choices from pre-existing sources, like phonebooks and sensationalist newspapers, and incorporating my own photography, poetry, found materials, and textiles. The working title is ‘Draw Around the Edges’. At the moment, that’s all I’m at liberty to share!

My love to the whole team at DG Unlimited, and thanks for the support they have given me as an art student and now as an emerging artist. There’s so much power to be found in creative collectives, and it’s organisations like this which have provided me the groundwork for a career I love, and a very beautiful life indeed.

If you’re a young creative, and you’ve got a hunger for the arts: let nothing stop you. Make the work! The rest will come in time.

You can follow Rhi and see more of here work atRhiannonMudaliar.com

CHURCHGOING

R. MUDALIAR - 3/5/23

Spiritus Sanctus, level the floors; Come shore up a place of worship for me. Hoist the rafters on those strong arms of yours, And make a steeple wide across As your body.

In this church, I will be Your Patron Saint of Getting Ready. Stretch the canvas, splay your fingers: A two part hymnal, me and thee. Sing along in holy gullsong; Pigment rich fallout

Powders the city.

The A85 mumbles ecstasies in her sleep, Exaltant kisses burning bitumen sweet Sorrows to ash; dust to dust. Cigarette sighs at the end of Mass And Second Comings

For everyone.

R. MUDALIAR - 29/1/23

After twenty-three years, This month I began To dream, at last, Of flight. A tickle of covers: My rough cotton sheets, Or the lick of white feathers Tracing your sides? Your sweet breath in sleep, or the beat of wide wings? Racing through blue, Harried by pink, We were the last Of the light in the sky. Your strength held true As we raced the past, Chasing the sun As slowly it swam From New Galloway To Tayside.

Poems: © R Mudaliar, 2023

Image: Jupiter, Rhiannon Mudaliar