Lucas Grogan‘s Major Commission Unveiled at MONA’s Phrontisterion

Artist Lucas Grogan has unveiled a monumental commissioned work at Phrontisterion, the newly opened library at the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart.

Titled A LIBRARY (Imagine Sisyphus Happy), the work was commissioned by MONA for its new underground library — a space built to house David Walsh‘s collection of more than 30,000 books and related objects. The collection includes rare holdings such as William Shakespeare‘s First Folio, a first edition of Lolita, and signed editions by Umberto Eco, J.G. Ballard and Hunter S. Thompson.

Grogan’s painting is made up of 27 panels spanning nearly 10 metres by 5 metres. Described as a verdant tidal wave of thoughts, opinions, memories, jokes and references to MONA’s collection, the work reads as a visual echo of the library that surrounds it.

Grogan has spoken about the origins of his library paintings, which began as a way to gather the contents of his journals — “jokes, quotes, ideas, opinions and reflections” — into a single place. “A meeting point where the serious collided with the ridiculous, and where interior life met projection,” he said.

He describes the resulting works as functioning as both time capsules and portraits. “We are not what we look like, but rather how we think, what we feel, and what we love or loathe,” Grogan said. “The libraries operate like distilleries, where sweet meets sour, academic meets frivolous, and questions occasionally find answers.”

Image: Lucas Grogan — A LIBRARY (Imagine Sisyphus Happy), 2026. Commissioned by MONA for Phrontisterion.