CAL2016.1 Tania Mason

Title
Irregular Plasma

Location
In storage

Place of origin
New South Wales, Australia

Year
2016

Media
Painting

Medium
gouche and acrylic on canvas

Dimensions
100 x 82 cm

Credit
Winner Calleen Art Award 2016

Accession number
CAL2016.1

Excerpt from The Calleen Collection by Peter Haynes (2019)

Tania Mason was born in 1973 and studied at the National Art school in Sydney earning an Advanced Diploma in Fine Arts (1997) and a BA (Fine Arts) in 2001. She won numerous awards including the Blackfriars Acquisitive Art Prize, Albury Regional Gallery (2004), a Hill End Residency (2006, 2009), Artist in Residence at the Bundanon Trust (2008, 2013, 2014),and a New Work Grant from the Australia Council (2007). She has been exhibiting regularly since 2001 and has shown in Australia, France, Belgium. Mason currently lives and works in Sydney.

Irregular Plasma is an intriguing work that comes out of the artist’s research into her son’s neurological condition. There is a jewel-like character in the clumps of exotic creatures that float over the canvas perhaps because of the bright blues and purples of the lush palette. The creatures appear to be reaching out to one another and exude a lifelike quality that is at once disturbing and attractive. Mason writes that “My son has a mild neurological condition that I have been studying over the years. This is a painting concerned with the chaos and the beauty of his mind. The work title Irregular Plasma exemplifies how fauna is also a survivor, how she has parallel survival instincts just like the human brain, especially when impacted upon. The concepts of this new work explore: Neurological patterns within the human brain; The pathway formations within the human mind; Natures (sic) complex geometric shapes such as vines, plants, trees and leaves. I aim to reveal gentle ways of viewing matter we cannot see and to create imagery that explains riddles within nature”.