Falling Through the Cracks

The exhibition is now to be hosted by the Gang Gang Gallery in Lithgow and officially opened on Saturday the 8th of October by Susan Templeman MP, ‘Special Envoy to the Arts’. This exhibition is a collaboration between Livonne Larkins and myself. I would like to give a special thankyou to Sharon Howard for accepting our proposal and for integrating two of our artworks on the face of the invitation. We would love to see everyone there at the Opening or at some during the month of October, which is Mental Health Awareness Month.

WE HAVE A GALLERY THAT WANTS OUR EXHIBITION IN OCTOBER 2022!

OCTOBER IS MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS MONTH IN AUSTRALIA

2020 and 2021 were the years of the Corona Virus pandemic, also known as COVID19, which began, so we were told, in the the closing months of 2019 in China. Livonne Larkins and I were to have an exhibition at the Balmain Watch House in Sydney, called ‘Falling Through the Cracks’ in early March 2020, but due to the fear of infection, all art galleries (and all public gathering places, churches, parks, concert halls) were closed until further notice. My work was put into storage and will be exhibited, but at a later date, so no photos for now.

In this exhibition ‘Falling Through the Cracks’ I have created a number of new works on canvas, Coreten steel and paper, in gouache, pencil and graphite, with the addition of old nails, sticks and Jacaranda pods. These works are representational, metaphor pieces which use wasted, discarded, natural detritus, which is given new value by including it in my artwork.

Additionally I have included many portraits and group portraits. Devoid of names which would personalise their identity, my subjects, although based on real people, are nameless.

I have explored the desperate, the forgotten, the no longer recognisable people in our society. The invisible. People who have fallen through the cracks, as well as those who have evaded and manipulated the legal system and those who are deviously in hiding. Inclusive to my concept are clients of the mental health system, failed students of the education system and the effect on families impacted by family law.

I have given the works titles, some unique and others in series: Cracked, Identity Tags, Looking at You, The Cry, The Family, Emerging From the Shadows, The Watchers and Turbulence.

In conjunction with my artworks I am including two poems which speak to the concept of ‘Falling Through the Cracks’.

FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS

vortex, swirling from the past

falling, tripping, holding fast

crumbling edges giving way

all is dark, light fades away

asphalt, concrete, sinkhole cast

waterfilled, reflected glass

I see the sky but can’t look up

liquid, loose, distorted, fast

abandoned, lost & slipped between

hidden, too low to be seen.