MELBOURNE-based artist Michael Vale’s exhibition The Cuckoo, the Herring and the Trembling Tambourines fuses Romantic traditions, absurdist theatre, dark fiction, and mischievous humour. His works invite viewers into worlds where drama and comedy collide, where the familiar and uncanny coexist, and where every detail – gathered through years of observation, travel, and study – is carefully reimagined.
Vale has spent much of his life exploring the world and absorbing its artistic treasures, collecting subtle details from old master paintings and popular imagery and absorbing them into his own, imaginative, visual language.
Vale began his career as a scenic artist, painting for theatre and TV, which explains much of the dramatic staging in his works. Notably, he also co-designed and refurbished the Luna Park Ghost Train, a project that highlights his flair for immersive storytelling, visual spectacle and fun.
The exhibition title reflects Vale’s layered approach to artmaking. “The cuckoo is a bird that steals things from other birds,” Vale explains, “like me borrowing bits and pieces from old masters and comic books.” The herring pays homage to his lifelong favourite artist James Ensor whose Skeletons Fighting over a Pickled Herring (1891) profoundly influenced his use of odd characters, skulls and the absurd. And the trembling tambourines encompass the artist’s love of music, the supernatural and the absurd.
Vale’s paintings are rich with spectral characters, theatrical backdrops and surreal, often comical figures. Over his 23-year tenure as a senior lecturer at Monash University, he encouraged Fine Art students to set themselves creative challenges, an approach he applies to his own practice to generate works that are both inventive and intellectually rigorous.
“Vale combines painterly skill with a love of storytelling and visual trickery,” says MPRG Director Dunja Rmandić.
“His richly layered works offer audiences an imaginative space where theatre, literature, and art collide. Every painting feels like a miniature world—carefully constructed, deeply observed, and full of surprises that reward the viewer with every look.”
Exhibition showing at MPRG from 28 February – 31 May 2026
For further details visit the MPRG website.
Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery (MPRG)
Civic Reserve, Dunns Road
Mornington, Victoria 3931
