“Mental as Anything” has nothing to do with a famous Australian rock band or drawings and paintings by one of its members, Reg Mombassa.

Rather, it is a 30-year retrospective exhibition of etchings by Townsville printmaker Ron McBurnie, who is at the moment a visiting artist in print media and drawing at the School of Art.

Like Mombassa, he is keen about misbehaving dogs, adding to his artistic menagerie ducks in box kites, jumping cats and a cane toad.

McBurnie focuses on quirky subjects found within his own suburban environment, as seen in his 1988 work “Toad Shooter”, based on a Townsville private detective.

“After coming home from busy days of insurance fraud and other such draining cases, he would sit in his backyard director’s chair with his Dolphin flashlight and his 22 rifle popping the toads off as they congregated around his sprinkler. His wife would later collect the carcasses and incinerate them,” McBurnie explained, adding that, “ideas and inspiration come from the weirdest of sources. Someone might tell me a story and then I might meet the people involved and the whole thing morphs into an etching. If I am marvelling at an old print, if I hear an idiotic story about a corrupt politician, if I am playing a piece of music that takes me to an extraordinary place – all these can be my inspiration.”

“Mental as Anything” by Ron McBurnie is a travelling exhibition developed by Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville, and runs until June 2 at the ANU School of Art Gallery.

Images (detail): “Dog’s bottles” by Ron McBurnie, 1988 from the Suburban series, hard ground etching and aquatint 20 x 31.5cm, edition of 20, City of Townsville Art Collection. Photo: Michael Marzik.

“This was Whistler’s mother’s cat’s third attempt to jump onto the table of the Margaret Olley painting” by Ron McBurnie, 1997, from the “Suburban series,” hard ground etching and aquatint, 39 x 49cm, edition of 20. Photo: Michael Marzik.