In suburbia RECENT DETOURS
curated by Gavin Wilson
RAIMOND DE WEERDT
ADRIAN DOYLE
RACHEL ELLIS
ELIZA GOSSE
CRAIG HANDLEY
ALAN DANIEL JONES
JOANNA LAMB
NOEL MCKENNA
CHRISTOPHER MCVINISH
PETER O’DOHERTY
CATHERINE O’DONNELL
TAJETTE O’HALLORAN
NICK SANTORO
IAN STRANGE
ROBYN SWEANEY
WADE TAYLOR
DAVID WADELTON
ANNE WALLACE
CHRISTOPHER ZANKO
8 March - 4 May 2025
curated by Gavin Wilson
In Suburbia
RECENT DETOURS
The National Trust S.H. Ervin Gallery is pleased to present this important exhibition which both celebrates and interrogates the great Australian dream and highlights the crisis in housing that has rapidly developed over the past twenty years.
The Trust is well-regarded for its efforts in protecting Australia’s built heritage and the theme of this exhibition aligns with its work. The S.H. Ervin Gallery has a reputation for its commitment to exhibitions that examine Australian cultural life, so it is appropriate that it is the venue for the exhibition. This major exhibition comprises over 50 works by 19 artists from across Australia who are engaged in the subject of suburbia as their artistic practice.
Once upon a time our house were simply our home – places that we lived, in communities that we knew. The notion of suburbia developed from a desire to escape the inner city ‘slums’ to the new estates with the promise of a modern home. Affordable houses like fibro homes made way for brick cottages and then modern houses became the norm until the advent of mega houses or ‘McMansions’ as we enthusiastically embraced consumerism. Now we find ourselves without suitable housing for the diverse needs of the population and continue to wantonly develop new estates led by investors and developers that are clearly unsuitable for long-term occupation.
We need to address that our suburbs are changing and need to change, and we all should be part of the conversation on how we want to live in the future.
The S.H. Ervin Gallery would like to sincerely thank the exhibition’s curator, Gavin Wilson for his expertise in, selecting the works in the exhibition and writing the accompanying essay. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the exhibiting artists for their support of this project from the outset and its presentation at the S.H. Ervin Gallery.
This exhibition catches a moment in time, and it will be fascinating to re-visit this subject in another 20 years to see what remains of suburbia.
INTRODUCTION
With the nation coming to grips with an ever-deepening housing crisis, In Suburbia: Recent Detours is a timely project on the eve of a federal election. As we look down the nation’s street of dreams, so much has altered. A modest home in a secure community is now financially out of reach to the vast majority of young people. What was once considered a beacon of security is now evolving into a site of constant anxiety that too often erupts into tragic scenes of domestic violence. Nonetheless, suburbia in all its disparate manifestations remains the living paradigm for the great majority of Australians.
While the exhibition holds no immediate answers to the crisis, critically the political resolve to address the spiralling house prices by winding back capital gains tax discounts was rejected in 2004 by the government of the day.
This brings us to the present impasse that threatens to herald in a dysfunctional society characterised by greed and indifference. Thankfully, there are not-for-profit housing initiatives taking hold, such as The Nightingale Project in suburbs of Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney that point to an equitable way forward: time will tell.
The exhibition can be seen as a cautionary celebration that looks across a diverse spectrum of housing types and conditions in suburban environments from Perth, Melbourne, the Wollongong region, Sydney, Penrith, Lismore, the Northern Rivers and Brisbane. The scope and quality of the works drawn from a select group of 19 artists focuses on the physical and psychological spaces that characterise the recent suburban experience.
GAVIN WILSON
Exhibition Curator
JANE WATTERS
Director, S.H. Ervin Gallery
Today’s suburbia would arguably be a different place without the coming of Bunnings Hardware. From its beginnings in Perth, the hardware chain has spread to almost every suburb and country town in the nation. With the commodification of the suburban home as the gold standard of a secure investment, the home improvement boom has evolved into a kind of secular ritual involving the whole family. From re-painting a bedroom, upgrading a kitchen or laying out a garden, Bunnings has captured a loyal customer base in pursuit of the Australian dream.
While a neighbourhood house fire evokes an immediate sense of dread, to witness the iconic Inglewood branch of Bunnings in Perth engulfed in a conflagration was fraught with mixed emotions. The event, in February 2018, inspired local artist Wade Taylor to re-visit the scene In Do it Yourself 2024, a work drawn from vivid memories of that night.
The enforced displacement from home and neighbourhood has upended people’s lives in a number of locations. In the Perth suburb of Wattleup, artist Ian Strange confronted the aftermath of the demolition of over 300 houses for re-development, with the exception of a few. One in particular, at 20 Dalison Avenue was the home of a ‘hold out’ who refused to leave. The standoff inspired an architectural intervention with a light & sound installation, resulting in vibrant series of four photographic works, two of which are on exhibition; Dalison 2 2022 and Dalison 3 2022.
On the subject of displacement, the impact of the Lismore flood on the 28th February 2022, left a lasting physical and psychological impact on an already disadvantaged community, particularly in South Lismore, that bore the brunt of the floodwaters. Local Photographer Raimond de Weerdt, documented the loss of hundreds of houses in a compelling photographic compilation titled 99 Houses 2024, and also Address unknown 2024.
Another Lismore-based photographer, Tajette O’Halloran, has delved into the feeling of aimlessness that permeates the youth culture of the region in works such as Lismore 2020. While flooding in the area is a constant threat the anxious, troubled lives of young people in her community has a melodramatic resonance in the subtle glow of fading light as in The Flats 2023.
The Melbourne artist Adrian Doyle, has focused his lens on the dark side of the suburban dream. Doyle has looked down the nation’s street of dreams and found it wanting. A house that once was considered a beacon of security is now evolving into a site of constant anxiety, amplified by mortgage stress and a sense of alienation that too often erupts into scenes of domestic violence. Doyle’s mise en scene, The Failed Dream 2018, visualises the consequence of failed suburban aspirations followed by abandonment with its concomitant of casual vandalism. Yet in the scheme of things, it may have a potential re-use as a site for the nation’s growing homeless community.
A delight in the appreciation of the nation’s suburban kitsch is apparent in the rigorous exploration of the genre by photographer David Wadelton. The Front Yard series 2023, is a salute to the suburban creativity found in Melbourne and regional Victoria. An unalloyed knowhow and energy has transformed these suburban front yards into significant cultural curiosities, with colourful assemblies of statuary, towering topiary and of course, the much-loved tyre swans.
WADE TAYLOR
An outlier in the suburban experience is NSW south coast-based artist Nick Santoro. The worlds he moves throughand the grunge culture he celebrates is now an integral part of the suburban experience. The various tribes and sub-cultures that make up life around the malls, underpasses, vacant lots, pop up musical events and more, crowd the imagination of Santoro. In turn, the paintings generated such as Bobby’s Realm 2021 and Hill 60 2021, reveal the vital energy lines that weave through the outer reaches of suburbia.
Staying on the NSW south coast, the Wollongong region has the distinction of being home to a European migrant population. Many arrived in the post-war exodus and found work in the local coal mines and other industries. When the time came to building a home, security and permanence were high priorities.
As the son of migrants, Christopher Zanko was taken by the honest quality of the housing he grew up around. His monumental houses are painted with acrylic over a carved wood relief surface creating images of substance. All the textured elements of the composition, the sky, the roof tiles, the deep shadows falling across the brickwork along with the garden layout have a brilliant unity as in WW4 (Red Brick House) 2023. Unfortunately, these housing types are vanishing from the suburban landscape replaced by non-descript dwellings that have the tendency to neutralise the neighbourhood experience.
Catherine O’Donnell is an artist who grew up in the outer Western Suburbs of Sydney. By her own account, she enjoyed the experience and was proud of the modest fibro home where she spent her childhood. Later, as she pointed out, her work would ‘examine the beauty of the ordinary and suburban living as a site of complexity.’ She was interested ‘in the way vernacular architecture becomes recessed in our minds like wallpaper.’ Beyond the curtain beats a loving heart 2020, exemplifies the artist’s ability to harness technical brilliance while imparting a deep-felt emotion, unnerving in its seemingly drab context.
The Northern Rivers of NSW is a region feeling both the impact of global warming and the influx of migrants from capital cities in the south. The distinct character of the place is under threat from newcomers who don’t see the value of the coastal building types that make up much of the riverine and coastal habitats. For the past 30 years, Robyn Sweaney has searched out and painted particular housing types in places such as Ballina, Mullumbimby, Brunswick Heads, with works Past progressive 2018, Summer Breeze 2023 and Greenhouse Effect 2023. The process demands the artist’s forensic eye to calibrate structural subtleties along with the distinct character of the site. As the artist points out …’ with wealth comes expectation of scale – as in upscale which has radically altered the external face of our suburban landscape particularly along the coastal fringe. ‘
Further to the north in the Brisbane region, Noel McKenna remembers life in the floods of 1974 as the Brisbane River pooled around and under the houses built on stilts in Remember to come home … Brisbane River 2023. As we have seen in recent years, torrential rainfalls and flooding in South-East Queensland exacerbated by Global Warming, are a constant threat to life and property. The emblematic Queenslander continues to define the suburban life and culture of Australia’s tropical north.
left to right: CATHERINE O’DONNELL
Beyond the curtain beats a loving heart 2020
charcoal on paper diptych each 100 x 34cm Collection the artist & Dominik
left to right:
ALAN DANIEL JONES
Painting 259 (Beechwood Parade)
2018
acrylic on board, 101 x 110cm
Private collection &
Painting 266 (Mike Kenny Oval)
2019
acrylic on board 143.5 x 157 cm
Private Collection
Painting 262 (Beechwood Parade)
2018
acrylic on board, 104 x 113cm
Private Collection
ALAN DANIEL JONES
Painting 244 (Tamarisk Crescent)
2018
acrylic on board, 101 x 110cm
Alan Daniel Jones is an artist who also has memories of his family’s home and its suburban context – a context that has seeped through into his art. Cherrybrook, in North-West Sydney, is about 40 minutes’ drive to the CBD. The Jones family bought the spacious house off the plan in 1982. This is where the artist spent his formative years exploring the bushland, parks and streetscapes of the area. The black & white textured heads floating above the parkland in Painting 266 (Mike Kenny Oval) 2019, could be viewed as self-portraits or possibly the spirits of the place evoking an unsettling atmosphere.
A sense of suburban anonymity is evident in the works of Peter O’Doherty and Joanna Lamb. The multistoreyed red brick apartment blocks that have proliferated over recent decades depicted in O’Doherty’s works, particularly Eight Storeys Manly 2022, appear to have been built with the deliberate intention of effacing all character from the finished product. Thankfully, there are efforts to retrofit a number of these buildings with balconies and other life-affirming amenities. In Joanna Lamb’s Highrise1 2009 and Highrise 2 2009, the artist has deployed repetition to create a feeling of claustrophobia. The reduced detail and tight colour scheme emphasise the monotony and detachment people are faced with living the high life. A re-think of the amenity of these structures can only happen through planning and good design in line with sustainable practices.
The idea of a swimming pool in the backyard has become a key component in the suburban dream. The above ground pool in Craig Handley’s The Show Off #5 2023, provides the perfect respite on a scorching summers day. In a spare composition dominated by a vast sky, the artist has captured the youthful joy of flying through the air (probably from a trampoline) to splash down into the pool, executing a cheeky ‘bomb’.
In the deluxe version of the inground pool , Pool #7 2025, Joanna Lamb has painted the pool in situ on the
S.H. Ervin Gallery wall. Elements in the water can be seen along with reflections of the surrounds including the family dog. The pool also makes an appearance in Elizabeth Gosse’s We Were Cool on Craze 2024.
The painting depicts the carefully restored Art Deco residence and its sub-tropical garden someplace in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs.
Private collection left:
Regardless of where you live in suburbia, the council clean-up is a regular fixture. Craig Handley has made a fine fist of the event in Council clean-up #4 2013. Amidst this typical pile of junk & refuse, people at times, find a treasure.
Council Clean-up #5 2013 oil on linen 54 x 69cm
Courtesy PIERMARQ right:
Council Clean-up #4 2013 oil on linen 66 x 86cm
Courtesy PIERMARQ
CRAIG HANDLEY
CRAIG HANDLEY
A quiet sense of melancholia pervades the recent paintings of Christopher McVinish in The faded dream no. 1 2025 & The faded dream no. 2 2025. Travelling down from Katoomba, the artist was taken by these simple fibro houses in the Penrith area that had once been family homes. Both seem to have reached their use by dates and are probably marked for demolition and re-development. Gathering clouds fill the sky and instil the paintings with an inevitable sense of time passing.
Further to the west, the city of Bathurst is home to some of the earliest and finest housing in the country. It is also a typical place where mature street plantings come up against infrastructure. In Rachel Ellis’s painting, Autumn, round from the Hub, Bathurst 2020, the artist is confronted by the disturbing deformation of mature trees to make way for powerlines. These deplorable procedures would not be necessary if adequate planning was undertaken to place the powerlines underground. Healthy mature street trees are an indispensable amenity in any suburban context.
Daydream 2023
oil on linen 152.5 x 183cm
Courtesy the artist and Darren Knight Gallery
The garden has become a refuge for those who have time, space and resources to cultivate and maintain their dream. Anne Wallace was captivated by a scene she observed over a fence in a Brisbane suburb. The chance encounter was to inspire Daydream 2023. The scene was a magical garden that had taken time to evolve in the mind and hands of a constant gardener. The tableau created in the painting has a kind of cinematic quality. A mysterious ensemble of two young girls, a resting Alsatian in the shadows alongside an attractive woman holding a half-eaten apple could be seen as a suburban allegory of innocence and loss.
Whether we shy away from, celebrate or criticise its shortcomings, suburbia, in all its disparate manifestations is the place where most of us chose to live and dream.
Wilson March 2025
Gavin
left:
CHRISTOPHER ZANKO
WW3 (Unanderra Fibro) 2023 acrylic on wood relief carving 215 x 170cm
Collection: Judith Neilson, Sydney right:
ANNE WALLACE
RACHEL ELLIS
Autumn, round from the Hub, Bathurst 2020 oil on linen on board 122 x 111cm Orange Regional Gallery
RAIMOND DE WEERDT
Address Unknown is a composite photograph consisting of 100 photographs of Lismore houses that are part of NSW Government’s ‘buy back’ scheme. These dwellings, now standing empty and enclosed by fences, await their fate –removal or demolition. Through this piece, I aim to capture the poignant transition of these structures, exploring themes of displacement, memory and impermanence.
Address unknown 2024
pigment ink-jet print 60 x 80cm
Courtesy the artist
99 Houses consists of 99 Lismore houses bought back by the NSW Government, part of a larger initiative involving an estimated 442 homes in the NSW Northern Rivers. These properties face an uncertain future, set for sale, removal, or demolition. This buyback program aims to address recent flooding issues, yet their removal will significantly impact Lismore’s streetscape. As some residents have decided to stay, the contrast between vacant lots and remaining homes will alter the community’s visual and social fabric. The decision to remove these houses highlights efforts to manage flood risks, but the full impact on Lismore’s character is yet to be seen.
99 Houses 2024
pigment ink-jet print 90 x 100cm
Courtesy the artist
RAIMOND DE WEERDT
RAIMOND DE WEERDT
ADRIAN DOYLE
Adrian Doyle’s artwork is inspired by a weird psychological imagery, depicting hidden moments in a familiar world.
The familiarity of suburbia is something that determines my choice of imagery. The absence of life evokes vast emptiness and creates a window into a familiar dystopian world. This construct is a mise en scene, that gives the familiar a new life, critiquing the suburban reality verse the suburban dream.
Popular culture is a major influence on Australian suburban culture and the Australian psyche. Working at the intersection between urban art and fine art I have reimagined the Australian Dream through metaphors on suburbia with its familiar sounds and symbolism, believing its where Australian culture is defined.
The narrative lies in the familiarity of the object, a quarter acre block, a ‘Mc Mansion’ the ideal dream home, with the ideal dream life.
‘The Failed Dream’ becomes a very personal portrait, giving insight to a psychological landscape of the artists psyche, creating a modern and contemplative critique on contemporary Australian life, celebrating its banality and finding beauty in its ugliness.
ADRIAN DOYLE
The failed dream 2018 mixed media Private Collection
RACHEL ELLIS
Trees for me, are integral to the feeling and character of a place, not least an urban/ sub-urban environment. Where I live in Bathurst, the streets I love most are lined with large elm and plane trees, amongst others, standing as guardians and witnesses to the older part of the city. In newer suburban areas, Chinese elms and other species of trees are working on providing oxygen, shade, promise and hope to their communities - as fast as they can …
The feeling generated by the round organic shape at the heart of this composition and its relationship to the urban man-made environment caught my eye and moved me to respond. This shape -comprised of three mature trees, hacked to make way for powerlines, made me stop and consider their vulnerable, compromised states, yet reaching un-restrained together in unity toward the light.
RACHEL ELLIS
Winter, Gormans Hill Road 2020 oil on linen on board 105 x 122cm Private Collection
RACHEL ELLIS
Autumn, round from the Hub, Bathurst 2020 oil on linen on board 122 x 111cm Orange Regional Gallery
ELIZA GOSSE
A pink house in Bellevue Hill now gone and an Art Deco one lovingly restored. Both wonderful examples of suburban architecture, their walls holding close to the memories of their occupants. “We were Cool on Craze” and “This Was Once Someones Very Pink House” are both real buildings. My paintings not just a love letter to previous periods of design but an attempt to humanise these homes as a vital component of Australia and our national history.
Someone Owned This Very Pink House But Now It Is Gone 2021 oil on canvas 122 x 152cm
Private Collection, courtesy OLSEN Gallery, Sydney
We Were Cool On Craze 2024 acrylic on canvas 52 x 102cm
Private Collection, courtesy OLSEN Gallery Sydney
ELIZA GOSSE
ELIZA GOSSE
CRAIG HANDLEY
It is all a struggle; you attain and then you let go. Pools, trampolines, backyard cricket, scooters then bikes then cars. Sofas, white goods, TVs: all treasured one day and chucked the next for bigger, better and newer. An endless loop of moving up toward an inevitable slide. It is constant pressure with little down time. You fill a house, and you empty it. The layers discarded for all to see; privacy exposed. Children navigate and learn and copy and grow and repeat. Press ‘go’ then ‘stop’ and maybe have a swim in there somewhere. Good times and bad, up and down, a game of snakes and ladders. Boomtime!!
CRAIG HANDLEY
The show off #5 2023 oil on linen 122 x 152cm
Collection of Megan Bourke
CRAIG HANDLEY
The show off #2 2023 oil on linen 122 x 152cm Collection of Megan Bourke
CRAIG HANDLEY
Council Clean-up #5 2013
oil on linen 54 x 69cm
Courtesy PIERMARQ
CRAIG HANDLEY
Council Clean-up #4 2013
oil on linen 66 x 86cm
Courtesy PIERMARQ
ALAN DANIEL JONES
In 1982, we moved to Cherrybrook. I was five years old. At that time, the area was largely virgin bushland and old farms with a few scattered weatherboard houses. Cherrybrook was at the beginning of its redevelopment. Intended was a network of new roads lined with modern brick dream homes.
‘Painting 252 (Tamarisk Crescent)’ is a painting of the house my parents bought off-the-plan. We lived in Cherrybrook for 18 years. Suburbia is not a particularly common subject throughout art history, even though suburban life is reassuringly familiar to many Australians.
I painted my childhood home because suburbia evokes memories of nostalgia, security and adolescence. ‘Painting 266 (Mike Kenny Oval)’ and ‘Painting 262 (Beechwood Parade)’ depict Cherrybrook with two small black and white heads poised above the surface. Looking inward, these textured craniums are a motif that represents a personal connection to the subject. Embracing concepts of a personal connection to the subject helps give my art practice purpose and meaning.
ALAN DANIEL JONES
Painting 266 (Mike Kenny Oval) 2019 acrylic on board 143.5 x 157 cm Private Collection
ALAN DANIEL JONES
Painting 244 (Tamarisk Crescent) 2018
acrylic on board 101 x 110cm
Private Collection
ALAN DANIEL JONES
Painting 262 (Beechwood Parade) 2018
acrylic on board 104 x 113cm
Private Collection
JOANNA LAMB
The Pool works are an ongoing series of large-scale, ephemeral wall paintings begun in 2013. These pieces are an exploration of reduction and abstraction, where the outline of a backyard pool frames an abstracted representation of the surrounding house and garden.
In this series, the pool functions as an idyllic yet fleeting vision of suburban life. It evokes the carefree moments of suburban summers, and the aspirational status associated with home ownership in suburbia. The water’s surface mirrors the world above but the nature of reflection resists permanence and is easily disrupted.
Removed from their original context, the images take on the appearance of oversized logos, serving as bold, graphic emblems of the suburban dream. The impermanence of these works reinforces their transient nature; each painting is designed to be temporary, painted over and recreated elsewhere.
The works continue a dialogue with the pool paintings of David Hockney and Ed Ruscha’s own series Nine Swimming Pools.
JOANNA LAMB Pool #7 2024
acrylic painted in situ gallerywall
Courtesy the artist
The High Rise paintings form a series of ten works completed in 2009. Each painting depicts the same high-rise building, but with a distinct and systematically evolving colour palette. The colours were chosen using a colour wheel to establish consistent relationships and maintain balance across the series. When displayed as an installation, the repetition of the image, combined with the scale of the paintings and their positioning within a narrow gallery setting, evoked a sense of claustrophobia. The reduced detail, systematic colour methodology and the lack of people was intended to amplify the monotony, detachment and emptiness of everyday life.
Highrise 7 2009
acrylic on canvas 170 x 120cm
Courtesy Sullivan + Strumpf
Highrise 1 2009
acrylic on canvas 170 x 120cm
Courtesy Sullivan + Strumpf
JOANNA LAMB
JOANNA LAMB
NOEL MCKENNA
The Brisbane River is a meandering river that I spent my childhood time playing around. I was living there when the big flood of 1974 took place today remains a constant threat to everyday life. My work makes reference to the elevated houses that are characteristic of suburban Brisbane.
The cat in painting is one of the strays I used to feed when very young.
NOEL MCKENNA
Remember to come home...Brisbane River 2023
oil and acrylic on canvas
150 x 150cm
Courtesy the artist & Darren Knight Gallery
NOEL MCKENNA
Three Queenslanders 2022
oil and acrylic on canvas 168 x 168cm
Courtesy the artist & Darren Knight Gallery
CHRISTOPHER MCVINISH
These works are part of my ongoing pursuit to make portraits of places. I like to choose houses and streets that seem of an inscrutable nature, with a stillness possessed by something : memory, hope, fading endeavours, the vaguely threatening, the ordinary as odd, things implied. For me there is beauty in that. I might add weather, different light, to heighten the narrative effect.
‘This is what remains - the opposite of perfect, Something always wrong; a stained curtain, a shade askew, linoleum, false security, fences, trees (…)’ From the story Just Looking by A.M. Homes
CHRISTOPHER MCVINISH
The faded dream no.1 2025 oil on linen 91.5 x 122cm
Courtesy the artist
CHRISTOPHER MCVINISH
The faded dream no.2 2025 oil on linen 91.5 x 122cm
Courtesy the artist
PETER O’DOHERTY
Coming from Auckland as a child, the first thing that struck me about 1960s Sydney apart from the heat, sound and light, were the sprawling suburbs with newly built red brick apartment blocks and tiled rooved houses baking in the sun. Distilling these impressions into the paintings in this exhibition I’ve focused on shadows and light according to the time of day.
There’s a familiarity, anonymity and mystery bound up in these structures but now the iconic three and four storey apartment blocks have evolved into massive, expanding high-rise complexes casting long shadows over shrinking green spaces; their repetitious and generic facades indistinguishable from every other city in the world, obscuring millions of lives squeezed behind steel, glass and cement.
PETER O’DOHERTY
Eight Storeys Manly 2022
acrylic on canvas 152 x 152cm
Courtesy the artist & King Street Gallery on William
O’DOHERTY
Somewhere to live 2017
acrylic on canvas 152 x 152cm
Courtesy the artist & King Street Gallery on William
PETER
White Block Bondi 2017
acrylic on canvas 31 x 31cm
Courtesy the artist & King Street Gallery on William
Kingsford red block 2017
acrylic on canvas 182 x 213cm
Courtesy the artist & King Street Gallery on William
PETER O’DOHERTY
PETER O’DOHERTY
CATHERINE O’DONNELL
My practice examines the beauty of the ordinary and suburban living as a site of complexity. I am interested in the way that vernacular architecture becomes recessed into our minds like wallpaper. My drawings, whilst uninhabited, capture traces of human intervention: a closed curtain, an open window, a door ajar. These details invite viewers to extend their imagination beyond the presupposed mundaneness of lived-in spaces and directly engage with their own nostalgia.
While my drawings are representational, their realism is not merely a reproduction of the visible. I instead harness the pictorial power of illusion, scale and perspective to emphasise the abstract form and underpinning geometry of my subjects, and bring their overlooked emotional or cultural histories to the forefront.
Gold Leafed house 6 2022
mixed media 40 x 30cm
Collection the artist & Dominik Mersch Gallery
Suspended 2020
charcoal on paper, tape on the wall installation 197 x 280cm
Collection the artist & Dominik Mersch Gallery
CATHERINE O’DONNELL
CATHERINE O’DONNELL
O’DONNELL
Sydney Fibro Series 4 2017
pencil on paper 35 x 66cm
Collection the artist & Dominik Mersch Gallery
O’DONNELL
Beyond the curtain beats a loving heart 2020 charcoal on paper diptych each 100 x 34cm
Collection the artist & Dominik Mersch Gallery
CATHERINE
CATHERINE
Sydney Fibro Series 6 2017
pencil on paper 35 x 66cm
Collection the artist & Dominik Mersch Gallery
Urban Perspective, Large Window 2018
charcoal on paper 100.7 x 135.5cm
Collection the artist & Dominik Mersch Gallery
CATHERINE O’DONNELL
CATHERINE O’DONNELL
Inclosed land 2011
charcoal on paper 41.2 x 212cm
Collection: Orange Regional Gallery
CATHERINE O’DONNELL
TAJETTE O’HALLORAN
In Australia is an ongoing photographic series exploring my adolescence in the Northern Rivers in the 1990’s, a place of stark contrasts, utopian dreams, alternative culture and abject social disadvantage. The work is set in Lismore, NSW on Bundjalung land, in Australia’s infamous ‘Rainbow Region’, and focuses on the generation of kids following the famous Aquarius Festival.
O’HALLORAN
Heaven 2022
giclee print on Hahnemuhle art paper 79 x 52.7cm
Private Collection
It gently examines the residual effects of both, colonisation and this era of drugs, free love and political rebellion. The images in the series explore the existential dilemma of adolescence while showing the traces of the regions’ often unconventional family background and complex peer structures revealing how the idealism of the counter-culture movement played out when met with small town boredom and social disadvantage.
The series takes the form of conceptual documentary; constructing realities informed by memory to reflect experiences of youth.
TAJETTE O’HALLORAN
Lismore 2020
giclee print on Hahnemuhle art paper 79 x 52.7cm
Courtesy the artist
TAJETTE
Together Apart 2018
giclee print on Hahnemuhle art paper 79 x 52.7cm
Courtesy the artist
The Flats 2023
giclee print on Hahnemuhle art paper 79 x 52.7cm
Courtesy the artist
TAJETTE O’HALLORAN
TAJETTE O’HALLORAN
NICK SANTORO
Behind the Balgownie bushes, creeping behind the creek to avoid the paranoid streets, little Italy of years gone by, wandering if this was the house you bought with concrete cash. Names on plaques in backstreet parks, the whole Alpini crew, scrawled with an engraver by a friend of a friend an ocean away from the snowcapped peaks. A ten-cent price hike loses best customers of fifty years. Within the dockets, within the receipts, within the scratchies, the key to success lives, dies and is ignored.
NICK SANTORO
Bobby’s Realm 2021
acrylic on board 91 x 11cm
Private Collection
NICK SANTORO Hill 60 2021
acrylic on board with hand painted frame 82 x 92cm
Courtesy the artist
Whatever Happened To That Carpark? 2022
acrylic on board 85 x 124cm
It Was Is 2022
acrylic on board 82 x 92cm Private Collection
NICK SANTORO
Private Collection
NICK SANTORO
IAN STRANGE
Dailson is an architectural intervention and durational sound and light installation, resulting in a series of four photographic works and an 18-minute single-channel film work, and a one-off community performance.
The site-specific work was built around an isolated ’hold out’ home awaiting demolition at 20 Dalison Avenue, Wattleup, Western Australia. The home was one of two remaining in the former suburb, where more than 300 others had been razed for a controversial redevelopment. Created with permission from the home’s former owners, the installation comprised a large-scale LED video screen, programmed lighting and Powers’ original 18-minute composition, transforming the home into a ’performance’ of slow, poetic light and sound movements.
The result was a form of “anti-concert”, transmitted out into the void of this now empty suburb. Over three nights, Strange documented this performance in film and photography. On the last night, a small group of the home’s former owners, ex-residents and collaborators were invited to an intimate one-off live viewing of the installation before it was dismantled. This documentation became the foundation for exhibitions and screening events throughout 2022, including at the FotoFocus Biennial in Cincinnati, USA, and the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, China.
Dalison 2 2022
archival digital print, photographic documentation of site-specific intervention 162 x 117cm Courtesy the artist
‘MAKING DALISON’ documentary following the creation of a new project by Ian Strange & Trevor Powers
IAN STRANGE
Dalison 3 2022
archival digital print, photographic documentation of site-specific intervention 162 x 117cm
Courtesy the artist
IAN STRANGE
ROBYN SWEANEY
I have always been drawn to the exterior of more modestly scaled homes within the Australian landscape. The theme of ‘home’ as a concept has been challenged and adapted over the years as economics and external circumstances have changed. Over the past few decades what is now commonly built, because of wealth creation and people’s expectations of scale, has changed significantly. The external face of our suburban landscape has become radically different especially along the coastal fringe of Australia.
More recently I have been thinking about the dichotomy of the idea of ‘permanent Impermanence’ and the philosophical problem of time and change and what it means to be at ‘home’. Change is inevitable but our human need for shelter, security, safety or even contentment hasn’t, and during this age of housing unaffordability, mortgage stress and homelessness I think it challenges the idea of what is needed to make a home.
ROBYN SWEANEY
Past progressive 2018 acrylic on polycotton 70 x 100cm Private Collection, courtest Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
Continuum 2018
acrylic on polycotton 40 x 50cm
Private Collection, courtesy Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
Summer Breeze 2023
acrylic on polycotton 40 x 50cm
Private Collection, courtesy Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
ROBYN SWEANEY
ROBYN SWEANEY
Greenhouse Effect 2023
Holding Pattern 2018
Private Collection, courtesy Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
ROBYN SWEANEY
acrylic on polycotton 40 x 50cm
Private Collection, courtesy Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
ROBYN SWEANEY
acrylic on polycotton 50 x 70cm
WADE TAYLOR
On a warm February night in 2018 the Inglewood Bunnings went up in flames. It was an iconic branch and location, servicing the residents of the Perth city fringes and known for being a darn sight smaller and understocked than your regular warehouse outlet.
Working from my outdoor shed studio just a few blocks away, I could smell the acrid smoke and hear the explosions of gas cylinders, aerosols and whatever flammable materials were on those shelves. An accident or insurance job I’ll never know, but there’s a Woolworths there now…
The next day I decided to paint the scene, gathered from various news footage and have created a few iterations of it since. This version, an imagined take on an evocative suburban nightmare.
Do it Yourself 2024 oil on wood 121 x 110cm
Courtesy the artist
WADE TAYLOR
DAVID WADELTON
These works are from Front Yard my third book of personal investigations into Australian suburbia. The focus is on front gardens and yards from Melbourne and some parts of regional Victoria: from highly individual and often highly eccentric elaborate presentations displaying the hard work and particular aesthetic tastes of their creators to the sometimes somewhat melancholy front gardens and yards where remnants of former owners’ efforts have fallen into neglect or disrepair. All captured with affection, an acute eye and point of view.
Reservoir (tyre swans) 2023
archival digital print 72.5 x 100.5cm
Courtesy the artist
The focus is on the period from the 1950s to the 1970s. As a wandering amateur archivist, I’m interested in the changes I’ve seen in my lifetime. With the passing of generations, the process of urban densification and gentrification threatens the existence of these particular cultural manifestations. For this series I’ve taken photos over the past 12 years. The selection records the hard work of those who go above and beyond in their pursuit of a notable front yard. The suburban vernacular captured in the photographs forms a poignant slice of social history.
Braybrook 2023
archival digital print 72.5 x 100.5cm
Courtesy the artist
DAVID WADELTON
DAVID WADELTON
Sunshine West 2023
archival digital print 72.5 x 100.5cm
Courtesy the artist
Reservoir (dolphins) 2022
archival digital print 72.5 x 100.5cm
Courtesy the artist
DAVID WADELTON
DAVID WADELTON
ANNE WALLACE
I once was walking with my young daughter in the streets of the Brisbane suburb of Rosalie when I was suddenly arrested by this particular front garden. There was nothing very unusual about itit decorated the outside of the same wooden 1930s house replicated on most of the lots in the street - but the plants in the garden made a kind of screen of complicated green shapes and curving lines that half hid the small lawn beyond. It looked like a kind of stage set. It was a typical Brisbane front garden of the older suburbs, and, with nothing in it to show what year we were living in, the scene would have looked like this 50 of more years ago - it might have been the same front garden that my father spent his boyhood in.
Except of course that you can walk forever in these streets and never see anybody sitting in the front garden. The sight of them - the work that they require to prevent them from turning into miniature jungles - makes you think of the life of the person who owns these little plots of land, how they must spend their time working to be able to hold on to their refuge. There is never time to sit around and dream. The front garden, unfenced as it traditionally was, no longer has children playing unsupervised in these days of imagined threat.
ANNE WALLACE
Daydream 2023
oil on linen
152.5 x 183cm
Courtesy the artist and Darren Knight Gallery
CHRISTOPHER ZANKO
The themes of my work relate to my experience of growing up in the Wollongong region, an area once defined by the heavy industry of the mid-late twentieth century. I use this understanding and experience as a basis to reflect and contrast with other regions and outer suburbs as social and economic changes impact the vernacular and our association with place. The cost of housing for a time did not seem like an out of reach prospect. In more recent years this has shifted and the needs of housing a swelling population have come to the forefront. Often resulting in the subdivision of blocks to build townhouses. I recognise the necessity of these decisions to knock down and rebuild. I just sometimes lose where I am because I don't recognise the streets anymore.
CHRISTOPHER ZANKO
WW3 (Unanderra Fibro) 2023
acrylic on wood relief carving 215 x 170cm
Collection: Judith Neilson, Sydney
CHRISTOPHER ZANKO
WW4 (Red Brick House) 2023
acrylic on wood relief carving 215 x 175cm
Collection: Judith Neilson, Sydney
LIST OF WORKS
RAIMOND DE WEERDT
99 Houses 2024
pigment ink-jet print, 60 x 80cm
Courtesy the artist
RAIMOND DE WEERDT
Address unknown 2024
pigment ink-jet print, 90 x 100cm
Courtesy the artist
ADRIAN DOYLE
The Failed Dream 2018
mixed media
Private Collection
RACHEL ELLIS
Winter, Gormans Hill Road 2020
oil on linen on board, 105 x 122cm
Private Collection
RACHEL ELLIS
Autumn, round from the Hub, Bathurst 2020, oil on linen on board
size cm
Orange Regional Gallery
ELIZA GOSSE
We Were Cool On Craze 2024
acrylic on canvas, 52 x 102cm
OLSEN Gallery
ELIZA GOSSE
Someone Owned This Very Pink House But Now It Is Gone 2021
oil on canvas, 122 x 152cm
OLSEN Gallery
CRAIG HANDLEY
The show off #2 2023
oil on linen, 122 x 152cm
Collection of Megan Bourke
CRAIG HANDLEY
The show off #5 2023
oil on linen, 122 x 152cm
Collection of Megan Bourke
CRAIG HANDLEY
Council clean-up #4 2013
oil on linen, 66 x 86cm
Courtesy PIERMARQ
CRAIG HANDLEY
Council clean-up #5 2013
oil on linen, 54 x 69cm
Courtesy PIERMARQ
ALAN DANIEL JONES
Painting 244 (Tamarisk Crescent)
2018
acrylic on board, 101 x 110cm
Private collection
ALAN DANIEL JONES
Painting 262 (Beechwood Parade)
2018
acrylic on board, 104 x 113cm
Private Collection
ALAN DANIEL JONES
Painting 266 (Mike Kenny Oval) 2019
acrylic on board, 143.5 x 157cm
Private Collection
ALAN DANIEL JONES
Painting 259 (Beechwood Parade)
2018
acrylic on board, 101 x 110cm
Private collection
JOANNA LAMB
Pool #7 2025
acrylic, painted directly on wall
Courtesy the artist
JOANNA LAMB
Highrise 7 2009
acrylic on canvas 170 x 120cm
Courtesy the artist
JOANNA LAMB
Highrise 1 2009
acrylic on canvas 170 x 120cm
Courtesy the artist
NOEL McKENNA
Three Queenslanders 2022
oil and acrylic on canvas, 168 x 168cm
Courtesy the artist & Darren
Knight Gallery
NOEL McKENNA
Remember to come home…
Brisbane River 2023
oil and acrylic on canvas 150 x 150cm
Courtesy the artist & Darren
Knight Gallery
CHRISTOPHER McVINISH
The faded dream no. 1 2025
oil on linen 91.5 x 122cm
Courtesy the artist
CHRISTOPHER McVINISH
The faded dream no. 2 2025 oil on linen 91.5 x 122cm
Collection of the artist
PETER O’DOHERTY
Eight Storeys, Manly 2022
acrylic on canvas 152 x 152 cm
Courtesy the artist & King Street Gallery on William
PETER O’DOHERTY
Somewhere to live 2017
acrylic on canvas 152 x 152cm
Courtesy the artist & King Street
Gallery on William
PETER O’DOHERTY
Kingsford red block 2017
acrylic on canvas 182 x 213cm
Courtesy the artist & King Street
Gallery on William
PETER O’DOHERTY
White Block Bondi 2020
acrylic on canvas 31 x 31cm
Courtesy the artist & King Street Gallery on William
PETER O’DOHERTY
Brisbane High Rise 2018
acrylic on canvas 31 x 31cm
Courtesy the artist & King Street Gallery on William
CATHERINE O’DONNELL
Inclosed land 2011
charcoal on paper 41.2 x 212cm
Courtesy Orange Regional Gallery
CATHERINE O’DONNELL
Sydney Fibro Series 4 2017
pencil on paper 35 x 66cm
Courtesy Dominik Mersch Gallery
CATHERINE O’DONNELL
Sydney Fibro Series 6 2017 pencil on paper 35 x 66cm
Courtesy Dominik Mersch Gallery
CATHERINE O’DONNELL
Suspended 2020
charcoal on paper, tape on the wall
installation 197 x 280 cm
Courtesy Dominik Mersch Gallery
CATHERINE O’DONNELL
Beyond the curtain beats a loving heart 2020
charcoal on paper diptych each 100 x 34cm
Courtesy Dominik Mersch Gallery
CATHERINE O’DONNELL
Urban Perspective, Large Window 2018
charcoal on paper, 100.7 x 135.5cm (image size)
Courtesy Dominik Mersch Gallery
CATHERINE O’DONNELL
Gold leafed house 6 2022
mixed media, 40 x 30cm
Courtesy Dominik Mersch Gallery
TAJETTE O’HALLORAN
Together apart 2018 giclee print on Hahnemuhle art paper
79 x 52.7cm
Courtesy the artist
TAJETTE O’HALLORAN
Lismore 2020 giclee print on Hahnemuhle art paper 79 x 52. cm
Courtesy the artist
TAJETTE O’HALLORAN
Heaven 2022
giclee print on Hahnemuhle art paper 79 x 52.7cm
Courtesy the artist
TAJETTE O’HALLORAN
The Flats 2023
giclee print on Hahnemuhle art paper 79 x 52.7cm
Courtesy the artist
NICK SANTORO
Hill 60 2021
acrylic on board with hand painted frame
82 x 92cm
Courtesy the artist
NICK SANTORO
It Was Is 2022
acrylic on board, 82 x 92cm
Private Collection
NICK SANTORO
Bobby’s Realm 2021
acrylic on board 91 x 11cm
Courtesy the artist
NICK SANTORO
Whatever Happened To That Carpark? 2022
acrylic on board 85 x 124cm
Private Collection
ANNE WALLACE
Daydream 2023
oil on linen 152.5 x 183cm
Courtesy Darren Knight Gallery
IAN STRANGE
Dalison 2 2022
archival digital print, photographic documentation of site-specific intervention 162 x 117cm
Courtesy the artist
IAN STRANGE
Dalison 3 2022
archival digital print, photographic documentation of site-specific intervention 162 x 117cm
Courtesy the artist
ROBYN SWEANEY
Past progressive 2018
acrylic on polycotton 70 x 100cm
Private Collection, courtesy Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
ROBYN SWEANEY
Holding pattern 2018
acrylic on polycotton 50 x 70cm
Private Collection
ROBYN SWEANEY
Continuum 2018
acrylic on polycotton 40 x 50cm
Private Collection, courtesy Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
ROBYN SWEANEY
Summer Breeze 2023
acrylic on polycotton 40 x 50cm
Private Collection, courtesy Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
ROBYN SWEANEY
Greenhouse Effect 2023
acrylic on polycotton 40 x 50cm
Private Collection, courtesy Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
WADE TAYLOR
Do it Yourself 2024
oil on wood 121 x 110cm
Courtesy the artist
DAVID WADELTON
Braybrook 2013
archival digital print
Courtesy the artist
DAVID WADELTON
72.5 x 100.5cm
Reservoir (tyre swans) 2023
archival digital print
Courtesy the artist
72.5 x 100.5cm
DAVID WADELTON
Sunshine West 2023
archival digital print
Courtesy the artist
72.5 x 100.5cm
CHRISTOPHER ZANKO
WW3 (Unanderra Fibro) 2023
acrylic on wood relief carving 215 x 170cm
Collection: Judith Nielson
CHRISTOPHER ZANKO
WW4 (Red Brick House) 2023
acrylic on wood relief carving 215 x 175cm
Collection: Judith Nielson
DAVID WADELTON
Reservoir (dolphins) 2022
archival digital print
Courtesy the artist
72.5 x 100.5cm
Gavin Wilson is a leading independent curator, award-winning landscape architect and author. His wide-ranging exhibitions focus on the interconnected themes of landscape and culture in the Australian experience. Since 1993, he has conceived, researched and curated many significant exhibitions for public galleries in metropolitan and regional areas. They include:
The Artists of Hill End (1995) AGNSW and tour; Escape Artists: modernists in the tropics (1998) Cairns Regional Gallery and tour; David Moore - Sydney Harbour 50 years of photography (1999) State Library of Hawaii, Australian Embassy, Washington; Rivers + Rocks: Arthur Boyd and Brett Whiteley (2001) Bundanoon Trust and tour; The Big River Show: Murrumbidgee Riverine, (2002) Wagga Wagga Regional Art Gallery; Beneath the Monsoon: visions north of Capricorn (2003) Artspace Mackay and tour; Encounters with country: landscapes of Ray Crooke (2005) Cairns Regional Gallery and tour; Fireworks: tracing the incendiary in Australian art (2006) Artspace Mackay and tour; Cuisine & Country: a gastronomic venture in Australian art (2007) Orange Regional Gallery; Harbourlife: Sydney Harbour from the 1940s (2008) Manly Art Gallery & Museum and tour; Love on Mount Pleasant: Garry Shead toasts Maurice O’Shea (2009) Maitland Regional Art Gallery and tour; Surface Tension: the art of Euan Macleod (2010) Tweed River Art Gallery and tour; Elemental Reckoning: the art of Tim Storrier (2011) S.H. Ervin Gallery; Picturing the Great Divide: visions from Australia’s Blue Mountains (2013) Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, Everyone Is Here : Jason Benjamin paintings & graphics (2013:14) NSW tour; Re-figuring Dystopia: the art of Richard Goodwin (2014) Bathurst Regional Art Gallery and tour: Country & Western: landscape re-imagined (2015) Perc Tucker Regional Gallery and tour; Self Portraits on Paper (2016) Yellow House Gallery, Sydney; Interiors (2018) Orange Regional Gallery; River on the Brink: inside the Murray-Darling Basin (2019) S.H. Ervin Gallery; Tree of Life: a testament to endurance (2021) S.H. Ervin Gallery.
www.gavinwilson.com.au
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The S.H. Ervin Gallery would like to acknowledge the assistance of the following people and organisations in the presentation of the exhibition:
We are indebted to the many lenders to the exhibition and to all the exhibiting artists and their galleries including Arthouse Gallery; Darren Knight Gallery; Dominik Mersch Gallery King Street Gallery on William; Olsen Gallery; PIERMARQ; Sullivan + Strumpf and who have generously loaned works for the exhibition. Special thanks to Joanna Lamb for creating an original art work in-situ
Sincere thanks go to the exhibiting artists who have embraced the exhibition and have been so supportive in providing and sourcing the works for the exhibition. We thank them for their dedication and commitment to this issue which is starting to affect all in our society.
Finally our thanks to the exhibition curator Gavin Wilson, who has been working with the artists to select the work and create an exhibition that speaks of this time. He has created another thought provoking exhibition for the S.H. Ervin Gallery.
Project Team
Curator: Gavin Wilson
S.H. Ervin Gallery
Director: Jane Watters
Assistant Curators: Katie Yuill, Ella Kennedy, Christina Lau
Catalogue Designer: Ella Kennedy, Christina Lau
Installation: Thomas Kuss, Stuart Watters
This catalogue is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced without prior permission of the publisher.
E-Published to accompany the exhibition: In Suburbia: Recent Detours 8 March - 4 May 2025. Opened by Anthony Burke, Professor of Architecture UTS and presenter Restoration Australia and Grand Designs Australia, on Saturday 8 March 2025.
ISBN: 978-0-6483847-3-1
Published by the National Trust of Australia (NSW) 2025 Watson Road, Observatory Hill, The Rocks, Sydney NSW 2000
© National Trust of Australia (NSW) S.H. Ervin Gallery artworks © the artists or as noted
