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such an ordinary thing
In such an ordinary thing artists Izabela Pluta, Niomi Sands, Neal Smith and Martin Wilson share their ‘obsession’ for the ordinary and the everyday, the mundane, the incidental and the seemingly invisible. Objects, activities and images that form part of our everyday vernacular are employed to explore a diversity of complex themes, with touches of humour (often quite dark in its tone), pathos and irony.
Martin Wilson’s fascination with the Australian psyche, politics and history results in a visual language that is
whimsical, amusing and at times a little strange. His work Blue Budgie on Pink (2003) celebrates one of Wilson’s
‘unsung Australian icons’.
Photo-media artist Izabela Pluta investigates the displacement of memory and the ways in which memory is used in the construction of an identity. And whilst ‘vaguely’ familiar, a sense of the unknowable and anonymous is ever present in her images. The series of images in such an ordinary thing, Untitled (2005), are practically impossible to place: a public foot path, a front-yard, a park, a miniature golf course in an outback town in the middle of
nowhere maybe?
Niomi Sands also explores memory: autobiographical, social/historical and where these intersect. Yet in contrast to Pluta her work is explicit with intimacy. Sands trawls her childhood memory and experience to create her exquisite
installations. The intimacy of her works Friends Forever, Sydney 1984 (2005) and Try your luck, Sydney 1983 (2005) is reinforced with her choice of materials, in this instance soap, which is painstakingly and intricately carved.
As a matter of routine, Neal Smith explores the society and culture in which (he) we live, with a critical eye cocked
towards the fashions and which infl uence and often times dictate not just what we wear of consume but the very
way in which we think. With tongue placed fi rmly in cheek Smith chooses his subjects; Jesus, a B-grade actor made
famous only by reruns and cable TV, forgotten cartoon characters and a movie’s ‘cars’ not the movie’s stars. Smith explores society’s fascination with the car in 1985, c1989 (repeated) (2004). The work speaks of misplaced ‘youthful obsession’ and society’s seemingly endless appetite for consumption and possessions. And the car in this instance is the Delorian, after its impact with a train, from the Hollywood classic, Back to the Future III.
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