Text - Catalogues & Text
Selected exhibition text and catalogue essays ...
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EXHIBITION CATALOGUE TEXT
Michael Reid Murrurundi April 2023 |
Michael Reid Murrurundi, Happenings online catalogue
" ... Happenings takes inspiration from everyday domestic objects. Mason sets a dynamic scene, grouping and opposing objects in a unique manner. It is this interaction of seemingly familiar items that intrigues and brings the compositions to life ..." |
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EXHIBITION CATALOGUE ESSAY
Bathurst Regional Art Gallery April 2022 |
Tracy Sorensen, Cycle essay, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery Cycle catalogue
" ... The combination of organic and manufactured elements (the banksia cone and the cheese grater, for example) blurs the line between what is considered “natural” and what is considered “cultural”. “The banksia cone is a cultural object,” says Mason. “It has been shaped by firestick activity over thousands of years. And the cheese grater is rusting, a natural process.” The combination of such objects as equal players on a level surface creates a slightly unsettling, uncanny feeling. The familiar binary of western sensibility gives way to a non- hierarchical continuum of plants, animals, natural things, human beings and human-made things. Donna Haraway calls this natureculture ..." |
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EXHIBITION DECAL TEXT
Bathurst Regional Art Gallery April 2022 |
Bathurst Regional Art Gallery
" ... At once natural and artificial, inanimate and animate, and extraordinary and ordinary, Mason's paintings blur the boundaries of binaries, reflecting our shifting times ... " |
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EXHIBITION CATALOGUE ESSAY
Grey Foundations Companion Essay to the Exhibition Catalogue January 2023 |
Dr Anastasia Murney, Between the Light and the Dark, Grey Foundations at WAYOUT Artspace (December 19, 2022 - January 29, 2023)
" ... In Grey Foundations, an “ode to transition,” there are two distinct themes that cross over. The first is the profound social and psychological effects of COVID-19. The second approaches an environmental politics, weaving between raw and manufactured materials, thinking about how to see and sense things differently ..." http://www.nicmasonartist.com/grey-foundations-wayout.html |
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EXHIBITION CATALOGUE ESSAY
Project Gallery 90 Paintings within paintings, Nicola Mason 2021 |
Rebecca Wilson, Paintings within Paintings, catalogue essay
" ... there is a sense of something haunting, a subtle trauma that runs through these works, which adds to their mystery. A looming threat of change and movement lives alongside the stillness of Mason’s staged scenes, possibly a reflection of the difficulties of the past year or more that the world has endured ..." Source: https://17712692-b1a2-4239-b772-09bf372f9d22.filesusr.com/ugd/83fb03_d3acd2d7cb2a4a238695346f0b6c9263.pdf |
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EXHIBITION CATALOGUE ESSAY
A K Bellinger Gallery, Résidence, Nic Mason October 2018 |
Dr Gareth Jenkins
'... Nic Mason's paintings simultaneously intrigue the eye and the mind generating a compelling charisma that draws the viewer into their intimately detailed scenes, so singular in character as to span the gap towards universal story making. There is a playfulness here, and the passage towards the unknown, there is the emptiness that is a waiting to be filled and there is that very human tendency we possess of imbuing the most ordinary of objects with a talismanic presence. Ultimately Nic's paintings ask open ended questions, leaving space for the viewer to weave their own stories into these richly layered scenes.' 
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EXHIBITION CATALOGUE ESSAY
gallery of small things, BALANCE, Nic Mason July 2018 |
Catherine Atkinson, CSIRO
'Since European colonisation, Australia has experienced a devastating loss of wildlife species. Introduced species have been implicated in almost all mammal extinctions during this time and continue to wreak havoc with Australia’s unique threatened species. In her elegant compositions, Nic focuses our attention on this calamity with sensitivity, compassion, and a touch of her trademark wit ...' |
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EXHIBITION CATALOGUE ESSAY
STILL, Tablelands Artists Cooperative Gallery February 2017 |
Corey Tatz, A voice that was still
'... It takes time to absorb her work, and to let the narrative speak. The red bag with brass locks and leather handle is full of hope. Is this a journey, a destination, new beginnings, or maybe a farewell? A series of skulls from both introduced and native species - stacked on top of one another like an evolutionary timeline that is about to topple. The dolls borrowed from Nic’s husband’s grandmother are comforting, but also unsettling. A tinge of melancholy prevails. The animals depicted throughout her work reveal eyes that convey intelligence beyond their childlike bodies ...' Source: Tablelands Artist's Cooperative Gallery www.nicmasonartist.com/uploads/3/0/3/8/30381405/still_nic_mason_t_arts_gallery_catalogue.pdf |
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EXHIBITION CATALOGUE & CATALOGUE ESSAY
Cowra Regional Art Gallery, WILD, Nic Mason 2016 |
Tracy Sorensen - Writer of the 'Wild' catalogue essay, Cowra Regional Art Gallery, 2016
"... The beauty amidst the not-quite-right lies at the heart of Nic Mason's paintings. Her work is infused with a deep knowledge of the Australian bush, knowledge gained through a childhood of intent observation and drawing and an adult life working in the field of conservation management ..." Brian Langer, Cowra Regional Art Gallery, 2016 "... WILD is the first substantial body of work shown by Nic Mason since she began painting in oils only five years ago. This solo exhibition not only references Mason’s long background in conservation it is also a personal journey that reveals a visual language developed over time and inspired by the natural environment, and the Australian landscape especially around The Blue Mountains and west of the Great Dividing Range ..." Source: Cowra Regional Art Gallery WILD Nic Mason catalogue |