A couple of years ago a girlfriend said to me over a Pint, “You know what I’d like you to write about next?” “No.” I sipped my beer, wiped the froth from my lips. “God,” she announced. God is a painting by Julian Hooper that I recently fell in love […]
Megan Dunn
96 posts
This year I’ve presented several workshops on art writing and I always start with The Wounded Deer (1946). I open up PowerPoint and there she is. Frida Kahlo’s head painted on the body of a young stag running through the forest, as nimbly as it can on those tiny, delicate […]
I woke up the other morning, started scrolling my phone, and landed on an image of a gigantic Blue Ted roaming the flaxen countryside. Blue Ted had an enormous head and a rotund belly, but from his bright blue furry arms protruded human hands and from his blue furry legs […]
‘I thought I could work on my anger’, I said. I sat on the red couch and looked at my therapist earnestly. He is a kind, thin, graceful man who does tai chi. His pale-blue eyes twinkled like Santa Claus’s. ‘I also have a lot of creative blocks’, I said. […]
I can see why they didn’t put it in the show. It’s not made from our moment. It’s not a #metoo-era masterpiece. Quite the opposite, in fact. But there are no facts, only a lithograph called The Felled Trunk by J.H. Moesman that I can’t unsee. He made it in […]
Please enjoy Julian Sharp’s short and informative interview with me for TVNZ’s Seven Sharp, in my exhibition The Mermaid Chronicles at Adam Art Gallery Te Pataka Toi. This segment features wonderful footage of the show, including stellar performances by some of the world’s leading professional mermaids: Hannah Mermaid, MeduSirena, Julie […]
The short story: this is the PowerPoint I made for my exhibition The Mermaid Chronicles. It tells the story of how Splash influenced a generation of freelance mermaids in very short quotes and images. Dive in! The long story goes like this…I went to art school in the late 90s. […]
For my exhibition The Mermaid Chronicles at the Adam Art Gallery, we ran a series of film screenings: Splash (1984), Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) and I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing (1987). Before each screening, I interviewed a relevant speaker about mermaids in culture. Below are my edited Zoom interviews with […]
What’s art got to do with it? is the loose title —thanks Tina Turner—that I cribbed for my occasional art segment on RNZ’s Saturday morning show with Kim Hill. I discuss the intersection of art and life, hoping to look at art beyond gallery walls when possible. Worshipping art: on […]
Megan Dunn: The Mermaid Chronicles with works by Andrew Brusso, Olivia Erlanger, Julia Holden, Alexis Hunter, Suzanne Husky, Brett Stanley, Lena Maria Thüring, and featuring Annette Kellerman, MeduSirena, Hannah Mermaid, Merman Jax, and Julie Atlas Muz 21 October – 18 December 2022, Adam Art Gallery, Wellington. The Mermaid Chronicles explores writer Megan […]
This is the talk I gave for Speakers Corner: Art for Art’s Sake at the Auckland Writers Festival in 2022. Today I am going to tell you about: a picklea piece of paperand a hinge. But first I am going to tell you about nothing. I once gave an old […]
The pencil was on loan from Waitakere College. It wasn’t until I was tapping the model’s redhead with it—as though she was an egg I might crack—that I felt things were working. The pencil became the irritant. As writing is often an irritant for me. Each point bearing down on […]