Artwork: Shaun Tan, *Never drop your jar,* oil on canvas

The wonderful artist/illustrator Shaun Tan is currently featured in the exhibition Ten Years of Summer at Beinart Gallery in Melbourne, from 28 September to 20 October. Here’s one of Tan’s artworks in the exhibition, Never drop your jar, and his comment about the piece:

“Note the omnipresent crow, which owes something to the paintings of Australian artist Arthur Boyd, who often included a quiet animal observer of ‘secret’ human transgression. I grew up in Hillarys, a suburb of Perth dominated by ravens, always watching, calling out like something dying of thirst on the power lines. Also spent most of the summer fishing. As the younger and more inept brother, I was always dropping things into the inaccessible gaps between rocks, or otherwise needing help with a snag.”