Bruce Mahalski
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Bruce Mahalski | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) Mahalski in 2017 | |
| Born | Dunedin, New Zealand |
| Known for | street art, illustration, sculpture |
| Website | www |
Bruce Mahalski is a Dunedin artist, known for his illustration, street murals, and sculpture incorporating animal bones. He is founder and director of the Dunedin Museum of Natural Mystery, a private museum of natural history and ethnographic objects and curios.
Mahalski was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, the only child of two academics; his father, Dr E. R. Nye, was a physician and researcher at Otago Medical School, and his mother Pauline Mahalski was a teacher of psychology.[1][2] Both were collectors of biological curiosities and ephemera, and Mahalski credits them with inspiring his own collecting. From the age of eight he collected shells, fossils, insects, crabs, and bones, and the skins of small animals.[1][3] As a teenager, Mahalski worked as an unofficial intern at the Otago Museum and dreamed of opening his own museum one day.[4]
Mahalski graduated with a science degree and worked for a time in fisheries research.[2]
Music
Mahalski fronted several bands in the 1980s. In 1983 with Mike Weston he formed Crystal Zoom!, and they were joined in 1984 by Robin Murphy (bass) and Barry Blackler (drums), both from Dunedin band The Idles.[5] Crystal Zoom! had two 1984 cassette releases, and in 1985 a single on the Flying Nun label called Dunedin Sound on 45, a medley of Dunedin bands set to the hand-clap disco beat well known from 1980s albums such as Hooked on Classics.[2] Dunedin musicians Martin Phillipps and David Kilgour played their own compositions in the medley.[5] Phillipps later asked Mahalski to create cover art for The Chills' album Silver Bullets.
Mahalski and Weston moved to Waiheke Island, Auckland in 1985 and reformed Crystal Zoom! with a new rhythm section. They began to experiment with four-track recording, incorporating masks, photography, and slide shows in their live performances.[5] The band was less successful, and Mahalski moved back to Dunedin, reuniting with Robin Murphy and other former Idles to form Let's Get Naked. The first Let's Get Naked album, Something Like That (1987), was the third release of Dunedin non-profit label Rational Records.[6] It included the minor hit 'Funky Dunedin'.[5]
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