THE WALL NEEDS TO COME DOWN

  


THE WALL (1993)
Artist: Neville Williams ©️Arts Law Australia
Size: 130cm W x 120cm H
Medium: Oils. Acrylic, Gold marker, Photographs, 
newspaper clippings on stretched canvas, framed
This artwork no longer exists.

Artist's Note:
This is an interpretation of "THE WALL" at Green Park, Darlinghurst.
This Wall has a reputation as being the exact place where convicts/prisoners 
were hanged in earlier days of Old Sydney Town. 
In more recent past years it was used as a 'beat' for sex workers and IV drug users.
It is located immediately adjacent to the Jewish Holocaust Museum, 
the Gay Holocaust Memorial, St. Vincents Hospital and Hospice 
where so many have left this world.

It is a major node point for loss and grief in Australia.

Here it is reimagined as a Memorial or 'release point' represented by a phoenix rising to the sky for all those who have lost their lives in unmitigating circumstances. 


The following words appeared on the artwork 
adjacent to included photographs of the Wall:-

“They built their wall
and judgements' cruelty drained their souls
and left them empty of self knowing
All that's left is their mark up on the stone
A memory in a mirror

They walked their wall
Their empty beggars bowls screaming silence
Hollowed by the siphons of a civilized society
A temporary fix of flight
Over in a night 

They dignify their wall 
and pointing fingers turn on themselves
The judged released from judgement
A bluebird rising to the sky
leads the way to discovering the light

And from these ashes
a greater phoenix will rise"

                                           - Neville Williams