rona green | earthly bodies

Written by Miranda K. Metcalf | Published 12 feb 2020

How we choose to present ourselves to the world is a daily choice. Well, at least any day you’re going to be seen by another human being. Our haircuts, our clothes, our accessories and our body modifications are all decisions we make to communicate something to the outside world and to ourselves about who we are or who we want to be perceived as. The tradition goes back as far as recorded history. Ötzi, the name given to 5300 year old remains found in ice in the Alps, has no less than 61 tattoos covering his body. While other animals are born with brightly colored feathers and elaborate patterns to attract or repel, we deliberately - and at times, extremely - alter the bodies we are born with. We are social creatures, and we use visual cues to express to outsiders, who we are, what our values are, and where we came from.

Our bodies, how we choose to alter them, and communicate with them has long been of interest to Australian artist Rona Green. “The idea of the gaze is eternally fascinating to me,” she told me via phone call from her studio in the Dandenong Ranges near Melbourne. Green is known for her bold, graphic, hand colored linocuts of human/animal hybrids covered in body modifications. These brightly colored figures stand facing the viewer, making direct, almost confrontational eye contact. Some wear clothes, others are in various states of undress, and almost all have visible tattoos. Her distinct and memorable aesthetic can be found in major Australian collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, and throughout the world from Belfast to Chiang Mai to Chicago.

Her early impressions of art and art making came from watching her grandmother and great-aunt doing craft work, specifically the needle work they both excelled in. A child of the 70s and 80s, Green grew up in Geelong, Victoria, loving cartoons, b-grade movies, and comic books, particularly those featuring anthropomorphic icons such as Bugs Bunny. “I’m an introverted person, but I love sass,” she says. She was drawn to the human-animal amalgamations in pop culture but also in Egyptian art. Where human-animals are not just allegories or entertainers, but instead gods and goddesses. Yet her work lacks the solemnity of such images and rather draws from the playful and brightly colored world of pop culture. “I don’t think accessibility is a bad thing when it comes to art,” she says, “It’s like Robert Rauschenberg said, ‘There is no poor subject.’ I think that wherever your interest lies, follow it.”

She knew she wanted to do something in the visual arts, and when first embarking on her education, she thought she was going to study fashion photography. She attended the Australian College of Photography, Art, and Communication thinking that while a career in the arts may not be the most stable, photography at least offered several different options for employment. Green loved the work of high fashion photographers whose work straddles the line between fine art and commercial endeavour. Naming both Richard Avedon and Annie Leibowitz as early inspirations, one can see how the look and feel of both artists’ portraits manifests itself in her current work. The subjects of Green’s work, her “manimals” as she refers to them, feel like they are taken from the set of a 1980s fine art photoshoot. Green’s subjects are cropped at the shoulders or the waist. They stand, often contrapposto, in front of a neutral background, while gazing right through the lens and into the viewer’s space. All while holding worldly, almost put upon expressions often reserved for punk icons or bored, beautiful models.

When it comes to the creation process, Green may begin with a person or animal she knows with the intention of creating a portrait about them. Other times, the subjects are someone completely of her own creation. She can be inspired by a song lyric or a passage in a book, which plant the seed that grows into a fully formed image. No matter the inspiration, Green always asks herself if this character is an introvert or an extrovert. A part of the process that seems in and of itself inherently introverted. Extroverts tend not to spend much time wondering about who is introverted and who is extroverted. Instead, they just move through social spheres taking up space and bouncing off whoever comes across their path without a lot of pause or contemplation to the inner lives of passing acquaintances. Introverts, as Green self identifies, spend more time observing and processing. The way she talks about her subjects one could almost see her as a guest at their party. They are out there in the room fully formed, while Green sits slightly apart watching them interact, decoding their tattoos and clothing and discovering who they are. Once Green has their personality in her mind she starts to draw until she arrives at an image which accurately reflects her new acquaintance. She then asks the drawing, “What size do you need to be? Do you need to be holdable? Do you need to be larger than life?”. Bodies as an expression are a key element to Green’s work, but the bodily experience of viewing the work comes into play as well. The size of a piece dramatically affects how it will be interpreted when seen in person. With all the physical attributes sorted, Green sets about carving a lino block—the most relaxing and meditative part of the process for her.

By utilizing tattoos in her images, Green is able to tell a story within a story through pictures within pictures. Her mother’s relatives were miners from Broken Hill, NSW, and while they spent a lot of their lives underground they also lived in the exceptionally harsh sun before the omnipresence of SPF in the twenty-first century. Their tattoos under such conditions bled and faded becoming a part of their skin, almost like a birthmark. The tattoos themselves were traditional designs, much like the ones that appear on Green’s subjects. She loved looking at the markings on their bodies growing up and once she moved out of the house she began to get tattoos herself. “I love the idea that someone’s imagination can be ignited by body decoration,” she says. With tattoos, both within Green’s work and the world, the body becomes a vehicle for story telling. This is both in the literal sense, in which someone may mark their body with their values or their history, but also in the stylisation of the body art. Someone with realistic a rose inscribed with their mother’s name is likely to have a different world view than someone with a psychedelic sexual space babe. Would a Celtic armband wearer necessarily navigate life the same as a naive broccoli aficionado? Unlike other adornments, even in our nakedness tattoos stay with us. In our most unadorned vulnerable state they can stay, acting as armour, memorial, or affirmation of who we are.

The idea of vulnerability came up several times during our interview. While her subjects are human-like they are also animals, showing the viewer their soft underbellies. She gets to know them during her process, from conception to realisation, they are her companions, and when it comes to time exhibit them she finds the experience quite vulnerable. Standing in a room with one’s artwork, you don’t have anywhere to hide. Everything that you’ve been putting time and love into is suddenly out in the bright gallery lights inviting judgment and criticism. If she can’t be there for the installation Green will send along notes to the preparator about which two characters cannot be hung together. When asked why she replies, “Well, because those two wouldn’t get along.” Yet she does enjoy seeing the reception of her work, and likes it when people come up to her and tell her their favourites. Once the manimals are out in the world she releases their meaning. They now live lives external to Green and will have their own relationships with the viewers. She says that people often tell her that one character or another will remind them of someone they know, or themselves. The simplicity of the line work and directness of the compositions allows her figures to be bold and vulnerable in how they present themselves, creating an instantaneous intimacy with the viewer. Green’s subjects, their tattoos, their dress, and their expression convey their story, and the audience meets them halfway with their own.

Ultimately, our flesh suits are only borrowed. Each and every one of us must come to terms with the fact that one day we must return them to the earth from whence they came. During the brief moment that they’re ours we lay claim to them in the way we adorn them and tell others something about ourselves. To be accurately seen and, hopefully, remembered are ways in which we look into the indifferent march of time and say “I am here.”

Rona Green’s Website

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