Dan Moynihan

Dan Moynihan lives and works in Melbourne. Mixed Emotions was first presented at his solo exhibition at Tolarno Galleries in 2019. 
Moynihan has displayed his work in galleries nationally and internationally including Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, and The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne. His work is held in the Collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne and at the Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart.
“Dan Moynihan’s artistic development has been informed by ‘too much cinema, inappropriate texting, bricks, driving a shit car, bad habits, taking things too far, renting, Magic 1278 radio ‘the greatest songs of all time’, not accepting baldness, other people, Bunnings Warehouse, not going far enough, eating alone in restaurants’ – just to name a few. His work is often structured around the funny side of a story; and his carefully arrangement of objects are like the punctuation of a good joke.” 
Tolarno Galleries

Moynihan began this work in April 2006 when he started collecting duplicate copies of his customers’ paint labels while working at Moorabbin Bunnings. Each label shows the details of the order, however Moynihan notes, ‘The only thing absent, is the colour itself.’ When opening each tin of paint for the customer’s approval, Moynihan captured a sample dipping his finger in the paint and recording it on his duplicate label. Over the course of a year he accumulated over 2,000 labels, which over a decade later he presented in chronological order creating pattern through repetition and prompting us to consider our emotional response to colour.

Images: Andrew Curtis, courtesy Tolarno Galleries