“About a year ago I had plans to do a road trip along a coastline I hadn’t seen before. Things changed and I couldn’t make it, so I painted it instead. Road Runner is a show about pace, destiny, sustenance and resources, both at a personal level and at large. If human being is the fast-running ground cuckoo, time is the coyote - advancing on its prey with increasingly complex contraptions, pitfalls and hang-ups. The story goes that the cuckoo leaves the coyote in the dust. But the tired, hungry coyote is getting cranky and a good run doesn’t come for free, meep meep!
"The first paintings across the line were Broken lines and Horse power (2024). I see these as Part 2 to a previous painting shown with Moosey - Big Day (2024), in which a bride falls out with a toad, both of whom are stuck in mud. Now she’s in the overtaking lane, knocking seconds off her life span with fun in the sun and other things that fry. These two works felt like treasure hunts to paint. I particularly enjoy the glue stain acting like chalk at a crime-scene; around a patch where the driver’s been braking too much. While chipping away with the radio on, I heard “flesh eating” mosquitos were making their way to me via an area of my road-trip-not-taken, so I included their bites. Meanwhile, the car I used as a reference was rear-ended. Fortunately for ‘Dave’, who left an honest note on the windscreen, I couldn’t hit him up for insurance because the car was internally rusted out anyway. Wet seasons in Sydney will do that to you. It Probably wouldn’t have been safe to go on my little road trip; maybe Dave saved my life.
"I could have used the rusty written-off Honda for Borrowed time (2024), but then saw my neighbour’s Celica parked next to it. I see this as a portrait: a sure body holding the line through leaking and weathering. Taking a moment and letting off steam. The concept, title and 60° tilt are a riff on the cosmological concept of “redshift”; used by astronomers to determine the distance of far away objects. Used by me to say red things go faster.
"The set of four works titled Daily fortune (2024) came to me while waiting at the servo (gas station). For some time I had been contemplating how a painting could dig into the classical elements - earth, fire water and air. Seeing these raw materials as both “signs”, and packaged resources, it’s only natural to draw the individual to their environment. Then there it was, conveniently located at a servo near me: the firewood cage; gas cylinders (from deep inside the Earth); freezer (Water); and tire pump (Air). These are the bare necessities of my trip not taken." —Megan Hales
https://mooseyart.co.uk/pages/norwich
