A sideshow taxonomy of engorged creatures or human surrogates present themselves on the wall. They are decorative, on display, made-up yet withholding, mute and pregnant with unfulfilled yearning and vulnerability. There is a sense of aspiration and a striving to become more beautiful, more desirable, more powerful but this is often betrayed by a burst or a leak. They don’t quite cut it!



'commoddities'..... recently appeared in 'someone shows something to someone' 2006, at Canberra Contemporary Art Space





First I will describe them.......

They're roughly human baby size or smaller and have an insect or large pupae like quality. They're often abstract but still recognisable as creatures and it's easy to identify human qualities. They are by turns humorous and disturbing, creating a push-pull effect, some are cuddly and some repellent. Some entice you to touch and squeeze or cuddle but then you notice the gross parts. The grossness could be grosser but it is somehow managed and controlled. They're engorged, swollen and full of something.....with a solid, dense presence, not flimsy, dessicated or fragile....at least, not on the outside.....a carapace perhaps? There is a strong sense of compression...... not soft, they're rigid with paint and glue, somehow caught at a stage but will continue to expand. The creatures are highly crafted, 'made-up' and the high degree of control in the making is quite repressive, sealing....they are stitched up. They are displayed on the wall, stuck up, pinned up, insect like, somehow formal, a taxonomy showing their sameness and difference. They display themselves passively, all the detail to the front.


Here we are!

Have a look at us!




from the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia



They all display in a vertical, portrait format. Some of the creatures have woven labels pinned or stitched onto them of weirdly worded cliches and affirmations. A modest amount of love (that might not actually represent love) has been used to tack or pin them onto the body. The creatures don't have mouths or maybe only very little ones, they have no voice and the labels can stand in for that. It's puzzling. There is an ambiguity about who is being addressed by these labels. What do they want? There is a need for love but expressed indirectly. They draw attention to themselves by their appearance as objects.

OH!....but they are all loved by their mother, the maker....some of that is exposed.


The optimism suggested by the labels goes too far in public.....it's irritating. These are all misfits, they're pathetic, they need love and are clearly quite benign but the stupid affirmations suggest they need to be told that things are shit. The victim thing is an annoying stance. They are easily rejectable. Their neediness is troubling. Although they are inanimate, the arrangements of weaker and stronger ones suggest they might turn on each other.....