Nobody puts Baby in a corner 2017, Shout Whisper Wail! The 2017 Chartwell Show (installation view), Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2017. Commissioned by Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki 2017. Supported by the Chartwell Trust. Curated by Natasha Conland.

Special Thanks to Mark Schafer for the excellent advice and neon translations.

Jim Sharfe and Johnno from Pro Sign Services for being pro with every step.

And Kheang Chea for his beautiful master neon glass bending skills.

INSTA PEOPLE

DEVELOPMENT DRAWINGS JANUARY – MARCH 2017

Invitation to develop a new Installation based on Status Update neon pieces: subject lines.

Respond to curatorial brief about ‘missing people’ or ‘missing voices’. Initially, the working title was The Missing People with mention of The Speaker’s Corner. I decided to take those things literally and began experimenting with a series of digital drawings and videos. I guess you would say it is a process of collaging digitally, things that I had collected in that period (as I do, normally and obsessively) such as green screening, music I can’t shake, TV shows, suburban imaging, current and past events, popular culture, Google search engines etc.

As a new commission sitting with existing works by Julian Dashpher, Alicia Frankovich and Marco Fusinato, I tried to think about how the work I was producing might connect directly and indirectly with those artists. I thought about the body and sporting history of Frankovich, Dashper’s abstraction and objects of popular culture and Fusinato’s giant reproduction media image. I think NPBIAC nods politely at them. For the audience, I hoped to create an interactive installation that people would want to photograph or be photographed in. And in every way, send mixed messages that are fun and entertaining with sometimes odd and serious undertones.