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Tyrone ‘Rone’ Wright’s exhibition Time is a haunting and memorable experience. There are few exhibitions that generate this level of excitement – each fine detail created by Rone and a team of 120 creatives at Flinders Street Station in Melbourne. After visiting the extended exhibition, Fluoro’s Editor Nancy Bugeja spoke with Rone.
Initially working as a street artist, Rone who grew up on a hobby farm outside of Geelong in Victoria, Australia, brought his magic not only to the walls of Melbourne, but also to places such as Burnham Beeches – the once luxury guest accommodation in the Dandenong Ranges. “Melbourne always felt like such a big city to me, a bit like New York from the perspective of someone growing up outside of Geelong,” says Rone. However, even though he wasn’t a city boy, he has managed to exquisitely capture what it must have been like to live and work in Melbourne in the 1940s and ‘50s with his current exhibition Time.
For Rone, “Simply put, nothing lasts forever, and we have to cherish it while it lasts, while still moving forward. It reminds us how we’ve changed and how much we’ve moved on, what was lost.” Walking through Time is more than simply viewing a time capsule of what has been lost, set to the musical composition by Nick Batterham who RONE first collaborated with at Burham Beeches. Rone also worked with model Teresa Osman, his muse with whom he has collaborated with for 10 years – her portrait appearing in many of the rooms, including in the Flinders Street Station’s ballroom, framed by an arbour that appears as a glasshouse but is, in reality, made of wood. As faux are the webs and decay that can be seen in every room, from the window sills, the floors and even in the glass-fronted display cases where objects and artifacts from that time appear not to have been moved. “Creating that sense of decay is an art in itself,” says Rone, who worked with scenic artists to create the dust and cobwebs. This level of detail is just one of the many reasons Time has left such an indelible mark on those who have seen it. “You deliver a level of detail that helps the viewer step into it and hard for them to step out of the illusion. As an immersive experience, they’re so close and not even sure if they’re looking at a fabrication or not. You want people to stay in that experience,” says Rone, who also starts with a space that then informs the work. The 11 rooms above the station certainly leant themselves to this exhibition, with the patina on the floors, walls and ceilings still in their original condition, showing all the blemishes that time brings with it.
While the term ‘the devil is in the detail’ is a well-used phrase, it’s most apt to use for this extraordinary exhibition – where literally nothing hasn’t been put under a microscope. The room dedicated to the typing pool, for example, features 14 mid-century typewriters, a nod not just to the past, but as importantly, the working class who spent endless hours clicking away on these now antiquated machines. In another room, there are sewing machines, benches, dressmaker models and even paper patterns that would have been a familiar environment for Rone’s late grandmother working in Flinders Lane nearby. And then there’s the library, layered with dust, with books that don’t appear to have been read for decades. While some are in glass-fronted bookshelves, many are stacked or have individual pages strewn across the floor. The antiquated telephonist’s room, with its myriad of cables hanging off the wall, is also a reminder that we have come a long way since the mid-20th century.
Time is considerably more than just a quick snapshot into the past. It’s also a reminder of where we have come from and where we are heading. “It’s a nod to the fragility of beauty,” says Rone, whose street art also comes with this sense of impermanence. “It’s always been part of my process as a street artist. What I have done is flipped that concept on its head making you the viewer aware of that. It becomes a shared loss.”
TIME by Rone is on until 23 April 2023 at Flinders Street Station, Melbourne, Australia.
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Text by Stephen Crafti.
