It would be nearly impossible to overstate the level of thought, commitment and detail that goes into Rone’s work. The Australian artist has been ‘levelling up’ project by project the past 5-10 years at such a pace that he’s nearly morphed into a completely different artist. What started as wheat pasted and stencilled portraits around Melbourne gave way, not surprisingly, to brush painted murals and in the early 2010’s Rone had already cemented his place as a headliner in the early days of the traveling mural festival circuit. But somewhere around 2015 the artists began to take steps towards a massive shift in his work and general trajectory of his life. Rone’s focus these days is on the creation of some of the most complex and large-scale art installations one could imagine. From the activation of an abandoned 1920s art nouveau theatre for a solo show of his photography, to the total takeover and reimagining of a multilevel 1930s art deco mansion into a fictional time-capsule window to the life of some of Australia’s opulent elite… all completely made up out of the artist mind. As Rone wrapped up the final weeks of his current installation ‘Time’ in Melbourne’s city centre, where he’s converted an abandoned train station into an eerie glimpse of post WW2 Australian work life, JB and Tom had the pleasure to catch up with our old buddy for a chat which unfortunately only scratches the surface of what this amazing talent is all about.
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