Ann-Maree Reaney

Each tie has been carefully selected and for many the limits of its possible form tested through the act of stuffing by the artist. The majority curl from the wall like shiny patterned snakes, some hanging down with shadows making calligraphic forms on the wall. Like protruding tongues that are smooth and silky “metaphoric carriers of the smooth lies that male power ritually dispenses” (4). On closer inspection we see Ryder has stitched woven commercial labels on the back of each tie “Trust me”, “man-made stuffed 100% Pure Guile”. On the opposing wall, large fake fur letters spell out the word PLOT, with the adjoining wall using vinyl letters to spell out words such as skinned, cutthroat, pure guile, posturing. The large fur letters that spell out PLOT lean against the gallery wall like large letter blocks to be moved carefully in the considered tactics of a game of chess. We are invited to consider the complicated and changing positions of power as, accomplice, or fellow conspirator. Les Animaux Sauvage was selected to be part of The Macquarie Bank travelling exhibition.

Ryder was invited to give a floor talk at the NGA in which she spoke of her interest in the dynamism of interpersonal relationships and the vital importance of the selection and manipulation of everyday materials utilized in each of her artworks. In this talk Ryder reads excerpts from her poem Lily White, a modern corporate fairytale a precursor to Les Animaux Sauvage. In both her writing and her artmaking we witness her powerful ability as alchemist to transport us from the perceived mundanity of our lived experience to engage us into the investigation and reflection of the evocative, compelling, dangerous and dark worlds we inhabit. Using satire and humour Ryder weaves her seductive plot of corporate bodies with males and females implicated in hideous undertakings and theatrical fictions. Scenes we have all witnessed and at times may have even been unwittingly involved in, even as bystanders.

“Lily White’s tongue licked slippery red lips:

In and out it flowed.

Join me, tongues,

Whisper in my dark cave……

Pink tongues twitched with excitement,

Resonating

At the prospect of another’s fall”

Lily White Mona Ryder 2005

In the poem Lily White, Ryder writes

“I am a clever, little boy

A naughty little boy

See the glow on my soft pink cheeks

Just another schoolboy trick

What a prick

We’re clever, little boys

Naughty little boys

See the glow on our soft pink cheeks

Stuff your tie,

Curl it at the end.

Let it dangle

How are you my friend”.

February 1st 2021, a team of archaeologists from Egypt and the Dominican Republic discovered the remains of a 2,000-year-old, gold-tongued mummy, an amulet they suggest to enable the deceased to speak “before the Osirian court” in an eloquent manner.(6)

In Christian tradition Satan is represented in the guise of a serpent, a symbol of temptation. The cunning snake that convinces Eve to eat the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge, that leads to her expulsion from Eden. In one of the tongue sheaths the garden of Eden is represented. In later tongue artworks we see a cross/crucifix gouged into the muscle of the tongue, fine metal spikes protruding from the tongues surface like an abrasive field and a tongue that is curled back with a screw like projectile placed to curtail its movement or possibly to create the force to launch the incendiary device.

It is Ryder’s attention to detail of the materiality of forms, that I have witnessed on my many visits to Mona’s table. The dining table laid bare with the carcasses of mussel shells, carefully cleaned after each dinner party, or meters of stockings gutted, stitched and dyed red, or numerous shoes carefully selected for their associations with power and sexuality, fur, leather, skins, hair and treacherous looking beauty implements like eyelash curlers or cooking implements like whisks and graters. Chairs that join to make cradles, crutches that become hair swings, and unsteady and tenuous supports for our lived bodies. The magic, joy and treachery of the fairy tale as played out in our daily lives.  The alchemy begins, as Ryder meticulously renders these materials into exquisite sculptural forms, men’s leather Italian shoes have beautiful painted portraits on their soles, high heels are covered in a stocking or skin sheath and have electric plugs attached, creating both an anxiety and a heightened sense of excitement. Skins are painted with exquisite detail, paintings are padded and embroidered, stockings are fashioned into exquisite dog and human heads, and ball gowns and long velvet curtains fall in glorious collapse as they hit the floor. Forms that are engaging yet satirical, tactile yet repelling, highly theatrical and seductive, are cleverly choregraphed in the dance of conversation.

Over the 30 years I have known Mona Ryder I have very rarely seen her without an idea brewing feverishly in either drawing, creative writing or in the direct materiality of working or choregraphing an installation. She re uses forms and continuously makes new conversations about power, gender, sexuality and mortality and the theatrics and pungent joy and pain of our everyday lives. In the studio she spends endless hours critically adjusting each element.  The home and the family are central to Mona Ryder’s life. The long wooden dining table is her domain. Sewing machine positioned on one end and strewn materials charged with meaning waiting impatiently for her attention, laptop in the middle (open and ready for conversing), and piles of art and research books on the other end. The table is then transformed into a lunch or dining table with fine handmade Italian glasses, exquisite food and always great conversation with her many friends considered family.

With a career spanning five decades Mona Ryder is a prolific artist moving with ease between creative writing, printmaking, painting, sculpture, large scale installation and public artworks. Her work has been recognized by many significant art institutions in Australia, however a major retrospective of her work is necessary to highlight this important artist whose artworks explore issues of gender, sexuality, mortality and power.

It is not the silence of the gorilla but in fact the misunderstanding of that silence that Mona Ryder “observes”.  She appears to “hear” those dreams, both fast and slow, and in doing so we begin to witness the inbuilt paradox of life itself.

1.    https://www.dorotheatanning.org/life-and-work/view/163

2.    https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/surrealism

3.    Foucault, M. (1991). Discipline and Punish: the birth of a prison. London, Penguin.

4.    Hoffman, I. (2008). A dark and merry dance. Catalogue Cairns Regional Gallery

5.    Ryder, M. (2005) National Gallery Floor Talk (date required)

6. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-unearth-golden-tongued-mummy-egypt-180976905/