Bruce Mahalski

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.

Life 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. 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. As a teenager, Mahalski worked as an unofficial intern at the Otago Museum and dreamed of opening his own museum one day.

Mahalski graduated with a science degree and worked for a time in fisheries research. 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. It included the minor hit 'Funky Dunedin'. Mahalski has been exhibiting and selling art since 1996, exhibiting screen-printing, sculpture, painting, and photography. His artworks occasionally include human bone, to make the point that humans are just another animal: "I don't accept that there's any spiritual distinction between the bone of a human and the bone of a sheep or a rat." By 2010 he was specialising in textural bone sculptures.

In 2014 Mahalski collaborated with the Wellington luthier David Gilberd to build a functioning slide guitar completely covered with animal bones, including 35 skulls, using trimmed cow ribs as frets.

Street art Mahalski has created numerous street murals, often depicting animals or the marine environment. His 2012 mural Electric Soup in Orchard Place, London, depicts marine animals, including electric rays (referencing the nearby laboratory site of electromagnetism pioneer Michael Faraday). Mahalski has also been a keen sponsor of others' work, raising money to bring British street artists like Phelgm and Cityzenkane to work and collaborate in New Zealand through his group Vivid Wellington. Mahalski organised the creation of a mural of New Zealand artist Rita Angus in Bond St, Wellington, painted by street artist Askew One (Elliott O'Donnell). It was completed in January 2019.

In 2019 Mahalski began a series of animal murals on Dunedin streets, referencing the specimens on display in Otago Museum's "Animal Attic". Animals depicted include badgers, sharks, an argonaut, a secretary bird, and a porcupine fish.

Museum of Natural Mystery See Dunedin Museum of Natural Mystery

After moving back to Dunedin in 2017, Mahalski converted the front of his Royal Terrace house into a private museum of "biological curiosities, ethnological art and unusual cultural artefacts". He believes the roles of artist and collector cannot be separated and sees his entire collection as a work of art.

Publications Mahalski, Bruce and Hunter, Abe. (2024). A Change in the Weather. Dunedin Museum of Natural Mystery. Hilton, Craig and Mahalski, Bruce. (2018). Seeds of Life: The Bone Art of Bruce Mahalski. Rim Books. Mahalski, Bruce. (2005). New Zealand's golden days. Gilt Edge Publishing: Wellington. Mahalski, Bruce. (2005). Pounamu. Gilt Edge Publishing: Wellington.