The Mask Spirits Hour is a collaborative exhibition by creative family collective TudoFAM. Ideas of storytelling, shapeshifting and hybrid identities are explored through speculative other worlds, guardian figures and auspicious imagery in each of the works.

Each light box features a supernatural figure, selected and adapted from an original series of 46 small works, entitled KB X RB—Mask Spirits. Intricately drawn and painted in watercolour, gouache and metallic pigment on paper, The Mask Spirit Hour presents four Mask Spirits, transformed through colour, scale and site-specific luminosity. Infused with symbols, patterns and charm motifs such as eyes, hands, scales, feathers, botanical elements, fins and fangs, this quartet of Mask Spirits forms a festive gathering of unconventional protective companions, floating amidst aquatic-celestial backdrops.   

The Mask Spirits Hour creates a dreamscape effect, offering a chance to pause during the day, dusk or night, whether close by, or from a distance, for an encounter with curious kin and transformative figures. As otherworldly apparitions in urban space, the Mask Spirits aim to help counteract anxieties of troubled times, via a talismanic offering of positive energies and benevolent, kindred spirits.  

TudoFAM artists Kate Beynon, Michael Pablo and their son Rali Beynon, merge analog and digital art-forms across drawing, painting, fashion, interactive spaces, animation, public art and projection art, informed by diverse cultural backgrounds, including Cantonese Malaysian, Afro-Caribbean, First Nations Pima Mexican and Welsh/Celtic ancestries. Based at Collingwood Yards as Studio Artists, Rali is a 2024 Centre for Projection Art Resident and Kate often collaborates with The Social Studio. Kate was awarded the 2024 Yarra Arts Fellowship, and is represented by Sutton Gallery, Fitzroy/Ngár-go.

Highlights include Fantastic Faces Space and Spirits Shapeshifting, commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery for Portrait23 and 2023 Enlighten Festival, Kamberri/Canberra; and Spirits Shapeshifting BTMfest, 2024 Bla(c)k Together Month Festival, with Centre for Projection Art, Collingwood Yards, Yálla-birr-ang.   TudoFAM’s name was inspired by their beloved late rescue Staffy-cross,Tudo, meaning ‘all’ or ‘everything’+ family, and their newest member is young Staffy, Lord Xango.

TudoFAM are grateful to live, create and present their work on Woi-wurrung Wurundjeri Country and extend respect to all First Nations People.