The cross section between beauty and decay has long been the focal point for Melbourne-based street artist Rone. Over the years, his public installations and murals have found themselves inside abandoned spaces, using the buildings and intentional settings to create immersive installations.
After six months in the long-abandoned third-floor wing of Flinders Street Station in Melbourne, TIME • RONE has found its way to Perth, inside the historical Centenary Galleries—a wing of the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) that has been closed for over 20 years.
“The building was just being used for storage space,” says AGWA director Colin Walker. “Floors hadn’t been treated, things had decayed, the process of neglect was well and truly into the fabric of the building itself, which really lent itself to someone who could use that as a starting point and build from it. It made all the sense in the world to work with Rone to make that happen.”
Rone had been interested in the space even before the exhibition found a home in Melbourne. “As a building it is a perfect setting. It allows me to blur the lines between my artwork and the building so you can’t tell where the art stops and the building starts,” he says.
AGWA has added a sensory aspect to the show, with soundscapes that “follow the natural journey of the building”, variations on lighting, and textural elements that invite audiences to touch. “It’s quite dynamic,” says Walker. “It’s the kind of experience where you’re in the moment, and then your eye is drawn to something in particular—maybe a hand-sewn label—where artistry and craft align. It makes it a different immersive experience to the high-tech ones; it’s much more intimate and emotional. It’s an immersive experience in that you can’t really escape—it’s all-encompassing.”
TIME • RONE
Art Gallery of Western Australia
On now—February 2025
This article was originally published in the September/October 2024 print edition of Art Guide Australia.
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