Troppo @ the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, ACT, 2009
An ephemeral ‘canvas of ideas’ hovers precariously above a denser, solidly grounded ‘ark of creations’. Beyond, portraits float in blackness, capturing elopers in nature’s inspirational screens.
Viewers are invited into shelter afforded by the canvas above, to rest and leave their mark on the soft yet sure, canoe-proportioned ark below. The ark’s reality is undeniable, but its ballast of paperwork from files and waste paper bins - aborted sketches, applications, correspondence, contractual minutae, and workings out - is its hidden substance.