“I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation;

but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished,

and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart."

- From Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley

"For years, I had the above quote from Mary Shelley’s Gothic classic Frankenstein in vinyl letters pressed to the wall of my painting studio. The words are the inner monologue of the titular character—the doctor, that is, not his creation who, like so many Modernist works, remained Untitled—as, upon finishing his project and seeing the result, he is less than satisfied with its corporeality. I kept these words as a reminder of the Aristotelean fact that the act of painting, as a collaboration with the material reality of paint itself—and of paints own subjugation to inexactitude and chance—will invariably produce results not aligned with one’s hope, one’s vision, or some Platonic ideal. So it is, I believe, with Metamodern failure. An unrealistic expectation of success goes beyond mere acceptance of the inevitability of failure but becomes a welcome embrace. We are all, as the well-meaning doctor, creating disappointing monsters.

The Australian Gothic employs European Gothic tropes to explore themes unique to Australia: the terrifying vastness of the natural landscape, the violence and trauma of colonisation, the harsh realities of the convict and frontier experience, and the deep unease about national identity. It uses the hostility of the environment and unsettling narratives of isolation, disappearance, and displacement to critique colonial optimism and explore the dark psychological and cultural underpinnings of all we now call “Australia”. The bunyip that lurks in the billabong is another return to myth, but not the christian mythology that was imposed upon Australian. This is myth of the truly home grown variety.

In The Gothic, David Punter and Glennis Byron point out that the Gothic genre flourishes during times of social upheaval, allowing us to explore our fears, subvert norms, and unearth those things in our history and culture that we may prefer to keep buried.”