The Hard Light of Day: An Artist's Story of Friendships in Arrernte
Rod Moss
The Hard Light of Day: An Artist’s Story of Friendships in Arrernte
Rod Moss
A story of whitefella -
blackfella friendship that offers hope for the future
Two years after artist Rod Moss arrived in Alice Springs to teach painting, he met a married couple who had set up camp in the gully beside his flat. Over the next twenty-five years, his friendship with Xavier and Petrina Neil and the friendships that grew from it with the families of Whitegate, an Arrernte camp on the outskirts of town, would nourish and challenge Moss beyond his imagining.
The Hard Light of Day offers a rare insight into the reality of life in the Centre, from the contours of the MacDonnell Ranges and the textures and sounds of Arrernte culture, to the endemic violence, alcoholism and ill-health that continue to devastate Aboriginal lives. In recalling the relationships and experiences that have shaped his life and work in Alice Springs, Moss unsentimentally reveals the human face behind the statistics and celebrates the enriching, transformative power of friendship.
Illustrated with Moss’s evocative paintings and photographs, The Hard Light of Day is an incredible journey into a world never shown in the mainstream media, and an artist’s chronicle of the moments that have inspired him.
Review
Jo Case, editor of the Readings Monthly newsletter
The everyday lives of Australia’s indigenous people, particularly those who live in remote communities, are mysterious to most Australians. We tend to stigmatise or romanticise indigenous communities, depending on our political views and upbringing. This remarkable, wholly engrossing book is a much-needed wake-up call.
Rod Moss lived and worked alongside the Eastern Arrente people in Alice Springs for nearly thirty years, not just observing but taking part in the lives of the people around him. A renowned (if resolutely unfashionable) artist, his work engages with and acts as a kind of commentary on the world he inhabits – a raw social realism. His clear-eyed, respectful, affectionate yet uncompromising view reports back on how life is really lived in central Australia.
The Hard Light of Day is chiefly a blend of memoir and reportage, telling the story of his relationships with the Arrenete people and the Whitegate community over the decades. But it also features fifty full-colour reproductions of Moss’s paintings, with commentary from the artist on each one.
Rich with anecdote and observation, both confronting and affecting, this is a must-read.
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