OCTOBER 9TH; THESE ARE ONLY OUR KIDS TOYS
FW12068
Someone had reported to police that a car containing a weapon had crossed Charles Creek into camp. After dark, according to the Kunoth family, about a dozen police in protective combat gear, kicked in the doors in search of the weapon. The process terrified old people and children. The weapon was a small, plastic toy. Later, the family made a formal protest to the police, claiming their unprecedented ferocity had been promulgated by liberties granted under the Federal Government’s Emergency Intervention umbrella. Goya’s 3rd of May, 1814, was running through my mind when I set up this confrontational tableau. It shows the dramatic moment of execution by Napoleon’s troops of Spanish insurgents, rising against the invasion of Madrid. In response to the Intervention, journalist Guy Rundell wrote an essay in Coercive Reconciliation. He asserted that Australia is the only Western country of note to have invaded itself.

THE JUSTICE PARABLE FW12071
A simple reworking of Breughel’s 1565 master work. I replaced the rural landscape of renaissance Holland with present day Alice Springs. The backdrop of a church and farmhouses has become a strip mall, a new model sedan idles at the traffic lights, and a vibrant orange-pink afternoon light, casting strong blue shadows, stands in place of the pale grey Dutch sky. While the action and poses of the figures remain the same, representatives of our legal system replace five of the six anonymous peasants. In ‘descending’ order, a stricken judge now leads the procession comprised of a barrister, followed by a solicitor, a lawyer, and a police officer. The last peasant has been replaced with shirtless and shoeless Adrian Hayes, standing close to but independent from the hapless professionals He surveys the scene with a bemused grin, one hand scratching his head and the other open-palmed and gesturing towards the procession, not all that surprised that this dire slapstick would occur before him. The chain of the legal professionals here are depictions of Simon Leadbeater, Henry Smith, Suzi Lyon, Iain Campbell and Mandy Webb.