Street artist: Rone, and Florence Annie Royce: China painting

You may wonder what connection a contemporary mural and installation artist named Rone and a china painting artist named Florence Royce could possibly have - almost one hundred years apart!

It’s amazing how people and art can be linked!

When I went to a recent exhibition at the Geelong Gallery, 100 kilometres south of Melbourne, I wandered into a room downstairs and found a display case containing the decorative china paintings of a local early 20th century artist, Florence Annie Royce. One vase in particular caught my eye as its colours were so delicate:

The place card beside the display case gave some information about her:

Here are a couple of other pieces of her work held by the Geelong Gallery.

Another example of Florence Royce's china painting. Credit: Geelong Gallery

Do you like them? I thought they were lovely, so I decided to see if I could find out more about her. Sadly, I couldn’t find much more , but in looking around the internet, I discovered that her work was the inspiration for the colours chosen for the installation in the Geelong exhibition by Rone, in February – May 2021 - almost 100 years later!

Here in Australia and Victoria, Tyrone Wright, known as Rone, is almost a cult figure, with his haunting exhibitions selling out very quickly. I went to his exhibition at Flinders Street station and have written about this and his other exhibitions previously click here and here.

If you look at those past posts you may notice that all his installations include haunting images of beautiful “Jane Does” and the exhibition in Geelong in 2021 celebrated this.

From the first room showing these portraits, you then walked in to the next room, the Douglass Gallery, which was transformed into a derelict reception venue which had been abandoned and just left as it was after the last grand party held there.

The architecture of the room itself, with its iconic pilasters, horizontal dado, and ceiling skylights, as well as the highly decorative interiors of the Baroque grand palazzos in Venice inspired Rone to lament the beauty and grandness of the ballrooms of earlier eras falling into decay, as so many have, when times have changed and they are no longer valued, appreciated and preserved.

The installation by Rone at the Geelong Gallery. Credit: Geelong Gallery and Rone.

Rone and other professionals (including interior designer Carolyn Spooner and the carpet designers making a bespoke carpet) worked tirelessly to create the incredible detail that gave the overall impression of beauty, age, and decay. The following 2 minute video gives us some appreciation of the work that went into creating this memorable installation....

Credit: Rone and Geelong Gallery

Isn’t it amazing!

Interestingly, Rone grew up in Geelong, and said at the time the exhibition opened in 2021 “Working in my home town is special. I had to leave to come back, but Geelong Gallery has given me the recognition to further my career; my first institutional solo exhibition. Geelong has done that for me." 1

He remembers visiting the Geelong Gallery in his youth, and “coming across” the delicate china paintings of Florence Royce dating back to the early 1900s. This inspired the overall colour palette for this installation, almost 100 years later! How lovely! This is probably the same display case that I also saw recently at the “Cutting Through Time” exhibition.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see his exhibition in Geelong back in 2021, but I was lucky enough to find the slide show below, so we can take an online tour even now. You can just click or scroll through the individual images or you can drag any of the blue circles and move through the rooms in a “virtual” tour...... I hope you like it......

Explore RONE in Geelong in 3D
Learn more about Geelong-born artist Tyrone Wright in the RONE in Geelong—360° virtual tour.

Footnotes

  1. With thanks to Geelong Gallery and Joy Media