Hot on the heels of Rone’s sold-out and highly successful TIME installation at Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station, Rone brings his signature haunting murals to Art Gallery of Western Australia’s historical Centenary Galleries, with a new room and murals exclusively for Perth audiences.
From the mind of the ingenious and awarded multi-disciplinary artist Rone, in collaboration with stylist, Carly Spooner and composer Nick Batterham, TIME blends soundscape, mural, and installation to ask questions about what we leave behind and honours the otherwise forgotten.
Rone’s work is a testament to the power of transformation, breathing new life into forgotten spaces and engaging audiences in a multi-sensory journey. With each installation, he pushes the boundaries of artistic expression, inspiring viewers to question their perceptions and embrace the beauty of impermanence.
This is the first time the Centenary Galleries has featured an immersive experience and the first time the Galleries have been fully opened in nearly 20 years. Taking over 12 rooms on both floors, the visitor is lead through the rooms using a storyline to take them on a journey.
Rone said he has been captivated by AGWA’s Centenary Galleries for years. “As a building it is a perfect setting. It allows me to blur the lines between my artwork and the building so you can’t tell where the art stops and the building starts,” said Rone. “Just to know there is a hidden space that no one has seen for years is so exciting.”
The exhibition invites you to consider time and how it has worn away so much, with dust settling over the detritus. But through the peeling paint and cracked ceilings, life persists. Faces search out for something, for all of eternity. Ghostly illusions from the past meld with mirrors into the future. For now, they’re all here with us, frozen in time.
Emerging from the fertile underground street art scene in Melbourne, Rone has carved a distinct niche for himself, drawing acclaim and growing audiences to his large-scale installations that breathe life into forgotten rooms, buildings and eras.
More than just murals, these are collaborations with the very spaces themselves. Lights flicker, sound envelopes, murals cast your eye up and across. Like a puppet master pulling strings, Rone crafts the very atmosphere of your experience.
Breaking free from the confines of the traditional gallery model and embracing the impermanence inherent in painting walls, Rone descends on spaces and gives them a voice.
His recent triumphs include Empire – a look at lost luxury, manifested by tides swallowing a decaying art deco mansion, and Omega – a noble final cry from the last weatherboard cottage standing.
TIME • RONE is the culmination of years, decades and a life spent chasing new artistic horizons, and stepping back to let spaces speak for themselves.
TIME • RONE
Centenary Galleries – AGWA, Cultural Precinct, Perth
Exhibition continues to 30 September 2024
Entry fees apply
For more information, visit: www.artgallery.wa.gov.au for details.
Images: The Glasshouse © RONE 2024 | Artist portrait – photo by Tony Mott