SIMON GARDAM
THE MOUNDS
27 Feb - 8 March
2025
A Meeting of the Mounds Transcribed by Harry Hay
Three painters in conversation.
There is some conjecture as to the identity of the artists, but they are considered to be Phil Sophocles, Nile Listich and Bernard Downe
PS I keep telling you, painters are like moles.
NL I’d say more like vultures, picking at the rotting remains of corpses.
BD I always thought we were more like sharks, always on the move.
NL Then how come you never leave the studio?
PS Because he’s a mole! As I have continually argued, the painter is a mole!
NL Is that because you should keep them out of the sun?
BD And have them looked at once a year.
(Audible chuckles)
PS You know what they used to call a mole?
NL Your mum?
PS Very funny. No, it comes from the Middle-English, Moldewarp. Earth-thrower.
NL More like Grave-digger.
BD When are you getting over this Death of Painting bullshit?
NL Grief is a process.
PS Anyway back to Moldewarp. Paint is earth. Painters throw earth. The painter is a mole.
NL Moles are blind. Maybe painters are moles.
BD If you could only see my paintings.
NL Ever your own worst critic.
PS "A hylle whiche beganne to tremble and shake by cause of the molle whiche delved it” - William Caxton 1484. Tell me, is that not the image of a painter, destroying his masterpiece. Turning his mountain into a molehill.
BD Paintings need that. Sometimes they look too good. You have to sling some mud at them.
NL Am I detecting irony from you, Bern? You want to make bad paintings now?
BD (Singing Nasally) What’s good is bad, what’s bad is good. You’ll find out when you reach the top.
PS Of the mountain or the molehill?
Phil Sophocles is an artist and writer. His work is held in a number of museums and private collections. His 2014 collection of essays, “Some Hill to Die On” argues for Painting’s continued relevance as an underground vehicle for subversive dialogue in an age of New Media.
Nile Listich is currently based in Melbourne but exhibits internationally. A self-described arch-ironist and Anti-Painter’s Painter working across video, performance and installation, Listich examines post-internet adjacent practice in an ever-expanding digital environ.
Bernard Downe was a painter and guest lecturer at RMIT. He is believed to have perished in a studio fire in 2003. The cause of the fire remains unknown. Little record of his life and work remain.
