Neighbourhood Watch

Runner up at The Linden Postcard Show, 2009.

This is what I wrote to accompany the piece:

A 1970’s suburban Melbourne home made of balsa wood with a sign over it depicting a smiling Wayne Carey dressed in his Kangaroos uniform.

Sometimes Australia’s tall poppies conveniently cut themselves down for us.  Only natural when we tend to choose heroes that are as internally disastrous as they are outwardly magnificent.  What does it say about us when we elevate a flawed character like Wayne Carey to god-like status?  And what does it say about a country which needs to be officially sanctioned to “Neighbourhood Watch” but behind whose benign suburban doors traumatic childhoods -- from Wayne Carey’s to Darcey Freeman’s -- are allowed to unfold to often devastating conclusion?

Influences for this work: The smiling giant donut signs of Matt Groening’s Springfield. The Swedish Pop artist Öyvind Fahlström, who in the 1960’s built intriguing narratives out of painted wood. The wry local artist Fergus Binns, whose subjects have included Joanne Lees and Steve Irwin, to name a few.