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Artist Statement
Mona Ryder is a twenty first century Surrealist. Of course, she doesn’t see herself that way, at least not consciously. But Surrealism never was about the conscious mind: the socially constrained and rigorously monitored thoughts of everyday reality. In Surrealism, too much is never enough, it’s the wild and illicit thrill of more, more, more. It is literally about going up and over the top, above the real. Surrealism is the delicious and cloying excess of surfeit, the conquering urge of surmount, the competitive spirit of surpass. Surrealism soars above, but it also delves under; it deliberately probes beneath the real to the realm of the unconscious, a world ruled by the capriciousness of chance, fear and dreams. The Surrealist legacy that Ryder taps into is perfectly embodied by Meret Oppenheim’s 1936, Object (Luncheon in Fur). Art critic Robert Hughes describes this fur covered teacup, saucer and spoon as, “the most intense and abrupt image of Lesbian sex in the history of art.”1 And he’s right. But only half right; cunnilingus isn’t a girls only club, men can play too…if they ask nicely. The real point is that Oppenheim’s Object has brilliantly withstood the test of time. More than seventy years later it still elicits a cheeky erotic tingle (or a moue of distaste, depending on your predilections). Perhaps more significantly, with this simple sculpture, Oppenheim trumped all the efforts of her predominantly male and often misogynistic Surrealist compatriots. Using the domestic, a sometimes stifling, always feminine milieu, Oppenheim beat the boys at their own game. Ryder carries on this tradition. She practices a cunning and feisty old school feminism which feeds off dreams, nightmares and corporeal desires in equal measures. Ryder will neither deny, nor be confined by, her feminine roles as a wife, mother and now grandmother. For more than two decades she has been channelling her passions and frustrations into artworks that interrogate gender stereotypes and challenge the male dominated status quo. And like Oppenheim, Ryder has the almost alchemical ability to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. She turns everyday materials and domestic objects into titillating, powerful sculptures that ooze a flagrant feminine sexuality, toy with taboos and teeter on the edge of abjection. In Barcelona Two Step, Ryder melds the rich, visceral iconography of Catholicism with a raw, post-apocalyptic tribal aesthetic. She uses crutches, faux fur, real hair, shattered records, shoes, stockings, broken furniture and other psychologically loaded found materials to create mysterious objects that conjure up sexually charged, ambiguous rituals. Ryder’s shoe pieces, especially, could be fetishes in both the pre and post Freudian sense of the word. Freud associated the fetish with a disavowal and compensation for difference. For him, a fixation on shoes is a reaction to fear of castration brought on by witnessing the mother’s lack (her missing penis) and a pair of stilettos, handy at the scene, become cathected with libido. Ryder’s shoes are fetishistic for precisely the opposite reason. They represent exactly what they stand in for. Placed together, heel to heel and toe to toe, Ryder’s shoes form an enticing void that overtly mimics distinctly female organs. Some sprout hairs, others trail long skeins of red fabric, one is penetrated by a plastic snake: they are sexy but not subtle, fetishes in the primary sense of the word. Like ritual objects from a matriarchal cargo-cult, they invite fantasy, devotion and worship. Freud’s obsession with the unconscious, coupled with his anxious and sexist ideas about sex made him a darling of the Surrealists. In Barcelona Two Step, Mona Ryder drags him out, slaps him around a bit, then milks him for all he’s worth. Tracey Clement
Mona Ryder completed an associate Diploma of Visual Arts in 1980 and a Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts) in 1991 at QUT, Brisbane. Since 1980 Ryder has had numerous solo exhibitions, including Mother other lover, QAG, Brisbane (1995), and Mona Ryder a Survey, University Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane (1984), and touring in 1985-86. Her work has been selected for many group exhibitions, including Regarding retro, Blacktown Arts Centre, Sydney (2005) and touring the 3rd International Fibre Art Biennale, Shanghai, China (2004) and invited artist to the 4th International Fibre Art Biennale, Suzhou, China (2006), the Biennale of Sydney, Penrith Regional Art Gallery, New South Wales (1986), and Australian Perspecta, AGNSW, Sydney (1985). Ryder has undertaken many public art commissions, including the Thornton Street Ferry Terminal, Brisbane, in 1995. She has received a number of awards and grants, including an Australia Council Studio Grant for a residency in Vence, France, and Italy. Ryder has taught at Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland: Queensland College of the Arts, Brisbane; and Curtain University and Claremont School of Art, Perth. Mona Ryder lives in Sydney. Studies1991 B.A. Visual Arts, QUT, Kelvin Grove, Queensland 1980 Associate Diploma of Visual Arts, QUT, Kelvin Grove, Queensland Exhibitions - Selected Solo: Exhibitions - Selected Group: Selected Awards And Grants Selected Bibliography 2001 Cross currents in Contemporary Australian Art , Traudi Allen, Craftsman House 1996 New Visions, New Perspectives, Anna Voight, Craftsman House 1995 Whose Who of Australian Visual Artists, Thorpe in Association with NAVA OTEN. Open Learning EDU Australia 1993 New Sculpture: Profiles of 40 Australian Sculptors, Nevil Drury, Craftsman House, Fine Art Press 1992 Sight Lines: ‘Women’s Art and Feminist Perspectives: Feminism in Australia, Sandy Kirby, Craftsman House 1992 A Visual Sourcebook of Contemporary Australian Painting, Nevil Drury, Craftsman House, 1992 Images in Contemporary Australian Painting , Nevil Drury, Craftsman House, 1990 New Art Six, Nevil Drury, Craftsman House Video, CD ROM and Websites 2005 Mona Ryder Lecture, National Gallery Sculpture Prize, National Gallery Australia 2000 Website, Australian National Gallery Collection, Australian Sculpture – Stories from Austria’s Culture and Recreation Portal, Australian Government www.culturalandrecreation.gov.au 1999 Website, Griffith University, Griffith Artworks Collection 1997 U.S.Q. (CAUT 3D Project) Commissions: Public Art Projects 2002 Arcadian Illusions, Cairns City Council, 3 Water Features, City Centre, Cairns 2001 Atherton Shire Council, Atherton, Halloran’s Hill, Kinetic Sculptures, Project Manager, John Mongard 2001 Park Road Park, Park Road, Milton, Brisbane City Council Collaboration with Landscape Architect, Mathew Lawson 2000 Sentinels Attempting Flight, Griffith Artworks, Griffith University, Logan Campus, two 3 metre external sculptures 1998 Tide and Time, Temporal Art Project, Brisbane City Council and Boondall Wetlands 1995 Crossover Guardians, State Government & Brisbane City Council, Statement sculptures (2-10.5m H), Thornton Street, Ferry Terminal, Kangaroo Point Boardwalk, Kangaroo Point, Brisbane Guest Lectures 2006 Guest Lecture, Macquarie Bank Travelling Exhibition, National Sculpture Prize, Griffith Artworks, Griffith University, Queensland College of Art 2006 Guest lecture, Manly Regional Art Gallery, Manly, Sydney, Regarding Retro 2005 Guest Lecture, National Gallery, Canberra, 2005 National Gallery Sculpture Prize 2005 Guest Lecture, Craft Council, Sufferance Exhibition (commission State Library of Qld) 2003 Guest Lecture, Newcastle University, Newcastle 2002 Guest Lecture, Public Art, TAFE, Cairns Board Member/ Reference Committees Collections:
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Artist Statement
Mona Ryder is a twenty first century Surrealist. Of course, she doesn’t see herself that way, at least not consciously. But Surrealism never was about the conscious mind: the socially constrained and rigorously monitored thoughts of everyday reality. In Surrealism, too much is never enough, it’s the wild and illicit thrill of more, more, more. It is literally about going up and over the top, above the real. Surrealism is the delicious and cloying excess of surfeit, the conquering urge of surmount, the competitive spirit of surpass. Surrealism soars above, but it also delves under; it deliberately probes beneath the real to the realm of the unconscious, a world ruled by the capriciousness of chance, fear and dreams. The Surrealist legacy that Ryder taps into is perfectly embodied by Meret Oppenheim’s 1936, Object (Luncheon in Fur). Art critic Robert Hughes describes this fur covered teacup, saucer and spoon as, “the most intense and abrupt image of Lesbian sex in the history of art.”1 And he’s right. But only half right; cunnilingus isn’t a girls only club, men can play too…if they ask nicely. The real point is that Oppenheim’s Object has brilliantly withstood the test of time. More than seventy years later it still elicits a cheeky erotic tingle (or a moue of distaste, depending on your predilections). Perhaps more significantly, with this simple sculpture, Oppenheim trumped all the efforts of her predominantly male and often misogynistic Surrealist compatriots. Using the domestic, a sometimes stifling, always feminine milieu, Oppenheim beat the boys at their own game. Ryder carries on this tradition. She practices a cunning and feisty old school feminism which feeds off dreams, nightmares and corporeal desires in equal measures. Ryder will neither deny, nor be confined by, her feminine roles as a wife, mother and now grandmother. For more than two decades she has been channelling her passions and frustrations into artworks that interrogate gender stereotypes and challenge the male dominated status quo. And like Oppenheim, Ryder has the almost alchemical ability to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. She turns everyday materials and domestic objects into titillating, powerful sculptures that ooze a flagrant feminine sexuality, toy with taboos and teeter on the edge of abjection. In Barcelona Two Step, Ryder melds the rich, visceral iconography of Catholicism with a raw, post-apocalyptic tribal aesthetic. She uses crutches, faux fur, real hair, shattered records, shoes, stockings, broken furniture and other psychologically loaded found materials to create mysterious objects that conjure up sexually charged, ambiguous rituals. Ryder’s shoe pieces, especially, could be fetishes in both the pre and post Freudian sense of the word. Freud associated the fetish with a disavowal and compensation for difference. For him, a fixation on shoes is a reaction to fear of castration brought on by witnessing the mother’s lack (her missing penis) and a pair of stilettos, handy at the scene, become cathected with libido. Ryder’s shoes are fetishistic for precisely the opposite reason. They represent exactly what they stand in for. Placed together, heel to heel and toe to toe, Ryder’s shoes form an enticing void that overtly mimics distinctly female organs. Some sprout hairs, others trail long skeins of red fabric, one is penetrated by a plastic snake: they are sexy but not subtle, fetishes in the primary sense of the word. Like ritual objects from a matriarchal cargo-cult, they invite fantasy, devotion and worship. Freud’s obsession with the unconscious, coupled with his anxious and sexist ideas about sex made him a darling of the Surrealists. In Barcelona Two Step, Mona Ryder drags him out, slaps him around a bit, then milks him for all he’s worth. Tracey Clement
Mona Ryder completed an associate Diploma of Visual Arts in 1980 and a Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts) in 1991 at QUT, Brisbane. Since 1980 Ryder has had numerous solo exhibitions, including Mother other lover, QAG, Brisbane (1995), and Mona Ryder a Survey, University Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane (1984), and touring in 1985-86. Her work has been selected for many group exhibitions, including Regarding retro, Blacktown Arts Centre, Sydney (2005) and touring the 3rd International Fibre Art Biennale, Shanghai, China (2004) and invited artist to the 4th International Fibre Art Biennale, Suzhou, China (2006), the Biennale of Sydney, Penrith Regional Art Gallery, New South Wales (1986), and Australian Perspecta, AGNSW, Sydney (1985). Ryder has undertaken many public art commissions, including the Thornton Street Ferry Terminal, Brisbane, in 1995. She has received a number of awards and grants, including an Australia Council Studio Grant for a residency in Vence, France, and Italy. Ryder has taught at Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland: Queensland College of the Arts, Brisbane; and Curtain University and Claremont School of Art, Perth. Mona Ryder lives in Sydney. Studies1991 B.A. Visual Arts, QUT, Kelvin Grove, Queensland 1980 Associate Diploma of Visual Arts, QUT, Kelvin Grove, Queensland Exhibitions - Selected Solo: Exhibitions - Selected Group: Selected Awards And Grants Selected Bibliography 2001 Cross currents in Contemporary Australian Art , Traudi Allen, Craftsman House 1996 New Visions, New Perspectives, Anna Voight, Craftsman House 1995 Whose Who of Australian Visual Artists, Thorpe in Association with NAVA OTEN. Open Learning EDU Australia 1993 New Sculpture: Profiles of 40 Australian Sculptors, Nevil Drury, Craftsman House, Fine Art Press 1992 Sight Lines: ‘Women’s Art and Feminist Perspectives: Feminism in Australia, Sandy Kirby, Craftsman House 1992 A Visual Sourcebook of Contemporary Australian Painting, Nevil Drury, Craftsman House, 1992 Images in Contemporary Australian Painting , Nevil Drury, Craftsman House, 1990 New Art Six, Nevil Drury, Craftsman House Video, CD ROM and Websites 2005 Mona Ryder Lecture, National Gallery Sculpture Prize, National Gallery Australia 2000 Website, Australian National Gallery Collection, Australian Sculpture – Stories from Austria’s Culture and Recreation Portal, Australian Government www.culturalandrecreation.gov.au 1999 Website, Griffith University, Griffith Artworks Collection 1997 U.S.Q. (CAUT 3D Project) Commissions: Public Art Projects 2002 Arcadian Illusions, Cairns City Council, 3 Water Features, City Centre, Cairns 2001 Atherton Shire Council, Atherton, Halloran’s Hill, Kinetic Sculptures, Project Manager, John Mongard 2001 Park Road Park, Park Road, Milton, Brisbane City Council Collaboration with Landscape Architect, Mathew Lawson 2000 Sentinels Attempting Flight, Griffith Artworks, Griffith University, Logan Campus, two 3 metre external sculptures 1998 Tide and Time, Temporal Art Project, Brisbane City Council and Boondall Wetlands 1995 Crossover Guardians, State Government & Brisbane City Council, Statement sculptures (2-10.5m H), Thornton Street, Ferry Terminal, Kangaroo Point Boardwalk, Kangaroo Point, Brisbane Guest Lectures 2006 Guest Lecture, Macquarie Bank Travelling Exhibition, National Sculpture Prize, Griffith Artworks, Griffith University, Queensland College of Art 2006 Guest lecture, Manly Regional Art Gallery, Manly, Sydney, Regarding Retro 2005 Guest Lecture, National Gallery, Canberra, 2005 National Gallery Sculpture Prize 2005 Guest Lecture, Craft Council, Sufferance Exhibition (commission State Library of Qld) 2003 Guest Lecture, Newcastle University, Newcastle 2002 Guest Lecture, Public Art, TAFE, Cairns Board Member/ Reference Committees Collections:
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