Courtesy: the artist and James Makin Gallery, Melbourne.

Welcome to the gromboolian plane, “an absurdist zone somewhere near the astral plane, where the irrational can thrive.”

This is Michael Vale’s own definition but the term is drawn from the equally absurdist mind of Edward Lear, and his poem The Dong with a Luminous Nose from 1872: “When awful darkness and silence reign / Over the great gromboolian plain.”

In the context of Vale’s exhibition at James Makin Gallery, the artist’s wordplay on plain/plane adds yet another layer of interpretation and thus extends the already limitless range of his gaze. It also injects some critically needed humour into these darkly absurdist times.

Opening Event: Saturday 27 May, 2 – 4pm.

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