RONE - Artist and Creative Entrepreneur - on developing new forms of experiential art

Over the past two decades, Melbourne- based artist Tyrone ‘Rone’ Wright has established an international reputation for his distinctive large-scale portraits and hauntingly atmospheric multimedia installations – which, since 2016, have pursued an increasingly ambitious scale.

Through his sensitive, detailed transformations of derelict and forgotten spaces, Rone invites audiences to engage in richly sensory experiences that present intriguing fictional histories and explore the divergent themes of beauty and decay, materiality and loss.

His ground-breaking projects Empire (2019), The Omega Project (2017), and Empty (2016) have drawn broad audiences and global media attention, cementing his role as
a genre-pushing innovator. Most recently, the site-specific Rone in Geelong (2021) installation saw the artist explore his signature style at Geelong Gallery in regional Victoria, developing a narrative that responded to both the gallery’s collection and the architecture and history of the building. The exhibition also presented the first significant survey of Rone’s career thus far, charting his early stencil works and street art alongside photographs documenting his major installations.

October 2022 saw the opening of his most monumental work to date, TIME. Set in the long-abandoned third-floor wing of Flinders Street Station, Time is a nostalgic love letter to mid-century Melbourne and a tribute to one of the city’s great icons.Created and developed over three years, this truly exceptional site-specific experience was Rone’s most ambitious project to date. Profoundly atmospheric, Time captures both the grand scale and character of the site and the minute detail of a period of Melbourne’s history long lost to progress.

Rone’s work is held in permanent collections at the National Gallery of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria. He is co-founder of Everfresh Studio,
an artist collective based in Collingwood, Australia.