"Each morning when I open my eyes the first image I see is a Rhipsalis plant, like the one to the left in the painting. Scanning the room, and without moving my body, the next image I focus on is another Rhipsalis with a white box sitting next to it with my mum’s ashes. Her name was Philomena. Her ashes have been there for a while now. She made it clear that she wanted to be cremated, but no instruction or wishes as to what to do with her ashes. Therefore, they sit there until I can work out what seems right, for both of us. I have had ideas - including taking some or all of them and placing them at her parent’s graves in India. Currently I am developing a section in my garden which includes her favourite rose, ‘Jude the Obscure’, to lay her ashes.

I like the way Rhapsalis grows. How enlivened and vital it is. And how it seems to inhabit space; physically and psychologically. While an inert geometric object, the white box also occupies space; one which should at face value seem objective, yet is charged with subjectivity. By bring these forms into the same pictorial space, I aimed to create a painting which oscillated somewhere between these states of objectivity and subjectivity."

- Rhett D' Costa, 2026

Rhett D’Costa was born in India and immigrated to Australia as a child. He currently lives and works on Dja Dja Wurrung lands in Central Victoria, Australia.

D'Costa’s research examines the fluidity of his cross-cultural identity, his experiences as a migrant, and his lived experiences on Dja Dja Wurrang lands. Experiences through these lenses often leads to a fractured, and sometimes nostalgic, relationship to belonging.

While his experiences as an Asian-Australian informs his practice led research, from the expressive use of colour to complex expressions of identity, home and belonging, it is his ongoing commitment to painting which informs all other part of his artistic practice.

In a career spanning more than thirty years as an artist and academic with the School of Art at RMIT University, Rhett has recently retired from full-time academic life to focus on his art practice, gardening, and walking his dog. He is an Honorary University Fellow of RMIT University.

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