THE CALLING OF DALLAS GOREY FW12069
This alludes to the moment when a youth is called by an initiated man to go to business/initiation camp in the bush. I asked Lorraine Gorey (Dominic’s sister) if she’d be interested to comply together with her son, Dallas. I’d originally thought to locate the composition in the bush but the lounge room table of Catholic paraphernalia was too good to pass. The table of icons to the Blessed Virgin Mary is authentically note-perfect. However, I tarted up the wall with a pattern motif and added the Carravaggio quotation, Calling of St Matthew (1599), to enhance the iconography and the rhythms provided by Gerard Rice. Caravaggio’s sombre interior depicts the arrival of Jesus and the calling of Matthew by Jesus to join his small band of followers. Gerard Rice, a senior man of cultural status, summons Dallas, the younger man, to come to the young man’s initiation camp. Lorraine is defending him, as is typical in a ceremonially mock display – preventing her son from being taken to camp. The painting concept displays two different or parallel ‘calling’ moments.

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.