My Funny Valentine 2021

My Funny Valentine Olsen Gallery 2021

“During Melbourne's COVID lockdowns, I found myself restricted from many places, navigating back streets by bike to reach my studio. There, I was greeted by my lifeless 'muses,' still wrapped up from a recent installation, The Long Shot, at Linden New Art in St KIlda, which had been shut down just weeks after opening. Despite the limitations, this series emerged from the surreal experience of facing a room of 'rogue characters'—life-size assemblages who became my subjects during those rare, precious studio visits.

These characters, created in the form of mismatched found objects, old costumes, fur coats, rocking horses, wooden masks, and Victorian antiques, playfully echoed the infamous Kelly Gang siege at the Glenrowan Inn in 1880, Growing up in Benalla, school trips to the quirky animatronic Tourist Centre in Glenrowan left an indelible mark on me, and I’ve often reinvented the Kelly family in my work as part of my own origin story.

The irony wasn’t lost on me—I was painting portraits of captivity while in captivity. Yet, face to face with these half-wit muses, I found life in their presence. Characters like Ma Kelly, Syphilis Man, Ah Fook, Ned with a horse dick, Greta, drunken Harry Powers, a dog gnawing a policeman’s head, and a bird on a wire populated my studio. This fueling spontaneous alla prima oil paintings, shot from the hip. The title for the upcoming show—something about outlaws, lovers, conflict, hostages, fraught histories—swirled in my mind as I painted.

One day, while working and listening to music, Ella Fitzgerald’s "My Funny Valentine" came on. Her lyrics—"Your lips are laughable, unphotographable, yet you're my favorite work of art"—resonated deeply. It felt like she was singing about these strange, lifeless muses of mine, who, in their absurdity, had become my favorite works of art.”

Take a Look and Listen as I sing to My Funny Valentine artworks in captivity.

Recorded on an iphone at the Victorian College of the Arts in an empty room in 2022.