Reg Mombassa isn’t a name that many people my age would recognise, but you might recognise him by his distinct visual style and larrakinistic attitude. They may be vaguely aware of a band called Mental as Anything¸ that he used to play in. They would surely recognise Mambo, the cheeky surfwear brand, but I’m almost certain they wouldn’t know about Reg Mombassa. The only reason I know about him is because of a documentary I caught one night on SBS2. While Reg [birth name Christopher O’Doherty] is from New Zealand, his work always seemed to me to have a distinctly Australian bent. They often feature Australian animals, outback landscapes, and a character called ‘Australian Jesus’. Despite the recognition that he has, I still consider him to be a ‘forgotten superhero of design.’

Mombassa’s work has become so closely intertwined with the Mambo brand, which has its own set of connotations and attributes. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Mombassa and Mambo share much of the same lackadaisical attitude. In one way it feels as though Mombassa’s artistic identity has become one with Mambo’s, so it should be asked, if anything is lost by that? When people think of Mambo, they likely think of Mombassa’s work without knowing that it is his going back to the idea of the anonymous or collective designer.

The question that must be asked is where does Mombassa sit culturally? As much as I admire his work I don’t really see him as a ‘high artist.’ Of course, much of his work was for a surf-wear company, which plants him immediately in an accessible place. His work is maybe too sarcastic, or satirical to be canonised. Who are the “authoritative members of the art community”[1] to come and legitimise Mombassa’s work? George Dickie said that “a work of art is an artefact of a kind created to be presented to an artworld public,”[2] but Mombassa’s art was created not for the art world, but for the surfer. For the insolent rebels, and those who would put their middle finger up to art as an institution.

[1] Victor Margolin. “Design Studies: Tasks and Challenges.” The Design Journal 16, no. 4 (2013): 401.

[2] Ibid.

If we look at an example of his work, like this panel from Gumscapes with road and creatures, [see fig.1] Mombassa features Australian landmarks shifted and changed into something abstract. Strange yet familiar. The foundations of the Sydney Opera house are red brick and the large wedges of its roof are made of rusty corrugated iron. The harbour bridge is straddled by a gigantic spitting spider. In a way Mombassa has brought some of Australia’s most dominant architectural and structural icons closer in line with the image of the Australian suburbia. The only thing I can think of that would make it more so would be the presence of a hills hoist somewhere in the background. This work is a good example of Mombassa’s interest in heightening what he sees as quintessentially Australian. It feels as though he’s taking both an outsiders and an insider’s perspective in this work. In a way he is both of these things. Born in New Zealand, but having lived here long enough to call it home. Australia’s reputation as a hive of deadly spiders is a notion from those on the outside looking in. The Harbour Bridge and the opera house are icons known to those overseas, instantly situating the scene in Australia, but the red brick and the corrugated iron, the washed out greens and greys of the gum trees, and the browning of the grass feel like Aus; less of a major flourish, but a quality that you’d only recognise after being steeped in it for quite some time. Neha Kale described his work as “olive-green hills dotted with anthropomorphic trees, crayon-bright barbecues and boneyards” going on to say that Mombasa’s work “has come to symbolise the modern Australian psyche, its sunny promise and simmering cultural anxieties.”[3] I find this rather apt and largely accurate. Kale has put words to the rather particular feeling Mombasa’s work expresses.

[3] Neha Kale. “Reg Mombassa Uses Art to Challenge the Bullying of “more Powerful Males”.” Sydney Morning Herald, August 3, 2018. Accessed April 3, 2019. https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/reg-mombassa-uses-art-to-challenge-the-bullying-of-more-powerful-males-20180730-h13auq.html.

In another work of his Australian Beer Tree we see a Koala, a Kangaroo, and a Jumbuck blackout drunk under an Australian shaped tree flowering with beer cans. Again he has taken strong pieces of Australian iconography and heightened and abstracted them. Taken Australians pride, and then thrown its boozing culture in its face. The work makes me ask ‘why?’ and the answer that’s closest to the truth is probably for a bit of a laugh. In an interview with Bernard Zuel for the Sydney Morning Herald Mombassa said “it would be a f—ing dull world without art and music,”[4] and I think that might just be it.

[4] Bernard Zuel. “Sentimental as Anything.” Sydney Morning Herald, June 29, 2002. Accessed April 2, 2019. https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/sentimental-as-anything-20020629-gdfepn.html.

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Bibliography:

Bernard Zuel. “Sentimental as Anything.” Sydney Morning Herald, June 29, 2002. Accessed April 2, 2019. https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/sentimental-as-anything-20020629-gdfepn.html.

Neha Kale. “Reg Mombassa Uses Art to Challenge the Bullying of “more Powerful Males”.” Sydney Morning Herald, August 3, 2018. Accessed April 3, 2019. https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/reg-mombassa-uses-art-to-challenge-the-bullying-of-more-powerful-males-20180730-h13auq.html.

Victor Margolin. “Design Studies: Tasks and Challenges.” The Design Journal 16, no. 4 (2013): 401.