Dan Moynihan, No need for alarm #2, 2022, stacked clock radios, dimensions variable. Shelf: 31 h x 42 w cm.
Dan Moynihan, Pure Incremental Allure #1, 2022, Aluminium, pop rivets, enamel paint 187 x 146 x 7 cm.
Dan Moynihan, Singles and Singles (distortion) 2022 mirror polished stainless steel, acrylic spray 23.5cm x 7.5cm x 2cm.
Dan Moynihan, Trivial Pursuits – installation views.
Dan Moynihan, When the lights are low, 2022, Plywood, fluorescent light, acrylic paint, chain, wool Light shade: 33 height x 180 w (length base) x 22 (deep) x 150 (length top) cm Wool: dimensions variable Chain: dimensions variable.
When he packed it in working as a carpenter on the Wollongong waterfront and went to art school as a mature-age student, Dan Moynihan ended up getting a job at Bunnings Warehouse to help with finances. While he now presents his artwork nationally and internationally, and has pieces in big collections, Moynihan eschews any art-star gloss. The hardware job, though, gives an insight into his practice. With his imaginative eye for materials, being at Bunnings is like working in a gargantuan art shop: something as simple as a length of aluminium, Moynihan says, is a joy for him to behold.
Little wonder his successful career reveals a love of surfaces such as stainless-steel mirror-finished bricks (Seeing Things, 2016) or more than 2000 paint-tin labels daubed with swatches of colour (Mixed Emotions, 2019). His latest projects at Tolarno will be presented in what the artist describes as “a one-man group show”.
A mix of both old and new ideas occupy the gallery space, and compete for attention. These include a triple stack of digital clock radios that flash on-and-off with the message “WAKE UP TIME TO DIE”, anda Bladerunner reference that nods to Moynihan’s previous works riffing on the cinema experience.
Moynihan says that even in a commercial space, he has always liked to respond experimentally to a site and let it be seen in a fresh way. “I’m aiming to create an exhibition that at first glance appears as quite disparate but as the audience spends more time with the work, a cohesion presents itself.”
And as always, there are a lot of personal reference points and in-jokes—some blatantly obvious and others so subtle they appear to be there only for Moynihan’s amusement.
Recently, Moynihan had a revelation as he was stopped dead in his tracks by a lone piece of hard rubbish on the side of the road. This revelation transformed an office stationery cabinet into a portal as part of his new installation. “I tried to explain it to someone. They just didn’t get it.”
Out of Interest
Dan Moynihan
Tolarno Galleries
26 November – 17 December 2022
A major exhibition charts the ingenuity and creative spirit coming out of the Yirrkala community across time. In collaboration with Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Art Centre,Yolŋu Power: the art of Yirrkala is now showing at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Have you ever wondered if someone who is no longer alive could create art? In answer to this question, biological artists Guy Ben-Ary, Nathan Thompson and Matt Ringold, in collaboration with the now deceased Alvin Lucier, have extended the experimental composer’s “ideas about the resonance of sound” for their immersive exhibition, Revivification at the Art Gallery of Western Australia.
A quiet power pulses through It’s Always Been Always at Fremantle Arts Centre, where six First Nations women artists reflect on kinship, Country and cultural memory.
Artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino have been recommissioned by Creative Australia as the Artistic Team for the Australia Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale.
Waanyi artist Gordon Hookey has been creating artwork for more than three decades. Describing his style as pictograms of a scenario, with images and symbols connecting a sprawling narrative, Hookey’s work, which is now showing at Plimsoll Gallery, is imbued with elements of activism, pop culture and lived experience.
Hobart-based Max Mueller’s In the Sticks exhibition at Handmark Gallery features oil-on-linen works that show tranquil scenes of Tasmania, musing on how nature is managed and maintained in a context of civilisation and curation.
