Rone & Insa in Collingwood

Just near the Lost and Found Market on Perry St in Collingwood is the above ally. Bathed in a bulbous checkerboard of red and orange this image peers at you as you pass the barely noticeable entrance to her otherwise stark domain. The work was done by both Insa and Rone and you can catch a quick squiz at them bringing her to life here. In Rone's "About" he talks of the desire to juxtapose the complete with the incomplete such as we find in the beautiful features of this woman dressed in warm reds and yellows looking down upon the stark ally, an ally that happens to even lack the charm of bluestone cobbles.
True to the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi this extra-ordinary object is located in the humble, a back ally in Collingwood is not the National Portrait Gallery, nor will she attract the attention of a team of professionals dedicated to the preservation and restoration of her existence. We will be able to watch her grow and mature as the elements weather her, as she peels from the brickwork and her colours fade, in this way she is much closer to us, more accessible and more knowable that say, a piece by Francis Bacon or Brett Whiteley.

Her beauty is also exacerbated by the knowledge that some night a can of paint could easily erase her from the world, and this knowledge of her transitory nature, of her very real vulnerability, holds you in place as you realise that you may never have this moment again. Indeed, she was actually constructed in four stages in order to create the "Gif-iti" viewed below. Both Rone and Insa painted her by creating separate images which are then looped like a flip-book animation.

She is not alone in her lane though and in part the below images offer a very nice escort: