MYSTERIOUS DECOYS
Selected artworks from the exhibition 20 April — 12 May 1996
Gallery 483, Sydney

An exhibition of 9 paintings and 23 drawings.

The paintings continue the themes, subjects, and style of previous work with their allusions to, and appropriations from, the Metaphysical and Surreal. There is continuity in the use of the box-form, which acts metaphorically as a psychic container or repressor ('Nocturnal Emission', a tower made from stacked boxes—much like a tiered wedding-cake—is a sexual monument both alienating and alienated), alongside impersonators (from birds to harlequins) that act as veils and disguises for the painter….
Quoted from a press release, 1996

… The ink, and ink and acrylic, drawings in this exhibition span a five-year period, 1990-1995. Their production entails, at the genesis, a random application of ink—brushed, pushed around, wiped away, concentrated or dispersed by water, lying more heavily in furrows where the paper is scratched. Since the starting method is chance-determined, seldom does a drawing present itself completely with the formal and instrumental qualities one wishes for (though the epiphenomenon does happen). Intuitively, one sets off to find the focus or foci of attraction—the cynosure—and once the ink begins to release its narratives and frameworks, the image is consciously directed. Soon the subject, the title, and the psychologies of the drawing are realized and made concrete. … Many of the drawings have subjects that are presented as being physically incapacitated ('The Disfigured General', '...Youth Eaten by Leprosy', or 'Orpheus'): they have outsider status. The offshoots of being placed on the platform of this peripheral station—anguish, desolation, dissatisfaction, confusion, and so on—are evident in works like 'Push-Me-Pull-Me Jack-Rabbit', 'The Weight of the Matter', and 'Nuclear Self-Portrait'.
Quoted from an unpublished artist’s statement, March1996, Sydney