THE ARTIST'S FULL RESUME CAN BE READ (HERE)
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ON THE WALLS OF BUREAUCRACY
WE ARE PUTTING IN OUR OWN WAY
(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)
Title: "The Peoples Forum"(2020)
Artist: Neville Williams ©️Arts Law Australia
Size: 93cm (W) x 93cm (H) x 7.5cm (D)
Media: Collage, foil, acrylic on canvas framed with a cream mount behind perspex within a natural Tasmanian Oak wood box frame.
$3,000
(CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE)
This artwork features ORICA HOUSE located in Melbourne used in the ABC TV / Working Dog Series “UTOPIA” about a fictitious Federal Government instrumentality known as the NBA - Nation Building Authority. The series satirises the inanity of a government bureaucracy and pushes home a message that it’s a wonder that any nation building ever gets done with all the barriers we put in our way…and it is us who create this bureaucracy.
Rob Sitch who plays the central character in the TV series kindly supplied feedback noting...
"...That's very interesting that you picked that building....
we fell in love with it and sadly,
were only able to use it the very first season…
It was an utterly wonderful building to work in...
A great subject matter for your work." - Rob Sitch
Of course it's not the actual building that is the real villain here.
Nothing wrong with the building itself.
It is quite lovely in design both inside and externally.
But in this artwork it provides the metaphor of a mirrored wall reflecting back to us the lack of clarity that prevents us from seeing our deeper selves or what needs to be done to move us forward. This can be interpreted to be not only at government or business levels but from our own individual confusions, beliefs, values, ideas or whatever our unbridled, misunderstood thinking puts in our way to distract us.
In the artwork you can see that the lights are on but no one is there.
Most are elsewhere during Coronavirus! The head spaces are fully buzzing with a whole array of problems.
Buried within this wall of confusion is the matrix of a new Australian Flag that has been placed in a mixed mosaic form. (Our future is in us if only we could see it.) If you took the time you could piece the coloured blocks into an actual clear, workable, practical Flag design that gives respect to our collective past and present and also points an aspirational direction towards our future. (Anyone with common sense and patience could put the pieces together correctly).
I only initially revealed the completed version of the New Standard to two people - a First Nations Elder and a First Nations Warrior. I have more recently revealed the design to a small hand full of proven leaders.
A new national flag is something that needs to be earned to give it value and appreciation of its significance.
You can see that the additional Flag almost invisible on top of the building is the ‘surrender’ flag. When we can surrender our confusions and belief systems that keep us going round in circles and reconcile the differences within inside ourselves then we can substitute a flag that actually says something solid. What we can see literally and curiously here is a blank space!
It may appear that the flag is flying at half mast. I’d prefer to see that it is in a process of being raised into its rightful position amongst the world’s great nations. The Australian Standard I’ve designed is most fit for purpose. I repeat, a flag though needs the value and support of many to mean something more than being just a good piece of graphic design.
The artwork is titled “THE PEOPLES FORUM”.
The path in the foreground leads around the wall of the building that is in the way.
The Peoples Forum (unseen here) is a place on the other side of this wall of, well, to be blunt…ignorance.
Ents (Philanthropy, Arts and Media) are shown guarding the path as wise guides along the way. - Neville ☺︎
FOOTNOTE:
Walls of bureaucracy are formidable and impenetrable requiring a lot of energy and resources to fortify over time or for anyone to try to penetrate.
That was evidenced in producing this artwork.
Cutting out and sticking on separately all those little building blocks of reflective foil obscuration gave me one helluva sore back and blurred my vision for a period. I actually bled during the course of this wall’s construction. Cut my thumb open with the scalpel I was using. Bureaucracy of any sort is so very painful to deal with at any level (ground floor through to the top).
Talk about suffer for your art.
The bureaucracy of life we've created really does need simplifying.
Frankly, I'm too old and tired now to have anything to do with all of the carry on of both bureaucracy or politics at any level. It is all such a waste of creative energy.
My job is to create beautiful art and I will continue to do so until I can no longer. - Neville ☺︎
