Mickey Mason (b. 1993) is a self taught artist based out of Port Elliot, South Australia. Mason studied and worked in film prior to art, infusing his style with a narrative quality. Motifs of the western genre, adventure, spy thrillers and sci-fi’s are often present, in addition to an emphasis on the solitary male protagonist. The compositions are suspended in a stoned dreamland where the surf is always pumping, everyone smokes and aliens regularly visit. Mason works with a variety of mediums from acrylic paint to glitter often resulting in a thick, textural canvas. 

 

 

This series of work Mason have named DREAM BALI TRIP came out of (believe it or not) a dream Bali trip. Since he hadn’t been overseas or had a holiday for sometime,  Mason jumped at the chance to go to Bali after being offered some work at a new venue. 

 

In Mason owns words: I am reminded of a very early morning close to the end of the trip. My neighbour in the somewhat derelict hotel had decided to have very loud sex early in the morning, by around 3:30am it had all calmed down but I lay awake forlorn, envious and unable to switch my hungover mind off. At 5am I got a call from a friend telling me he thought the surf would be pumping and we should drive an hour out of town to a secret wave that only worked when it was too small to surf in town. Although I was in no mood to go surfing I saw this as an opportunity to enact revenge on my neighbour, I thunderously stomped around my room packing bags, slamming doors and moving furniture. I don’t know if my revenge worked. (I imagine they slept pretty good that night.) Standing on the beach I realised I was way out of my depth, the wave was a gnarly, double over head, shallow, barrelling beach break and I was sleep deprived, hungover and morose. I grabbed my board and paddled out purely out of peer pressure, only to get some of the best waves I’ve had in my life. Floating in the water watching the sun come up over a tropical surfing dream paradise. I tried to capture that feeling of awe I felt in this series of paintings called DREAM BALI TRIP.