work / CARAVAN PARK 2022

CARAVAN PARK 2022

29cm x 9cm each

A set of eighteen pigment prints on 308gsm Hahnemuhle Cotton Rag paper

Caravan Park is a continuation of an earlier project titled Caravan Suite from 2000 - now expanded into a much larger series of eighteen works. Original essay from 2000 below

Caravan Suite is a series of silkscreen prints made while undertaking a residency at the Arthur Boyd property ‘Bundanon’ situated on the Shoalhaven River in NSW. Just prior to the residency we had spent a few days over summer 1999/2000 camping with our young son in a caravan park at Torquay, along the Great Ocean Road, Victoria. During this stay I became aware of the vast number of coloured, angular, abstract designs painted on the sides of the caravans. The forward angled, striped forms, revealed themselves as a complete formal design language, specific to caravans. The variations surprised me, each van seemed to have its own unique design, with some even enhanced or added to by the owner. It was something that up until that point I had never noticed before. The designs seemed to suggest movement, moving forward, traveling, perhaps to someplace better. I photographed well over 100 caravans during those few days in that park. These photographs were the reference used during the residency at Bundanon.    This series of work consolidated ideas seen in earlier projects exploring trigger points for memory, nostalgia and our shared experiences through existing abstract forms. I wanted to expand upon earlier works by attempting to firmly locate the experience as an Australian one. It is this communal memory of a beachside experience that I wanted to evoke in Caravan Suite...those long hot summer days, the smell of melting bitumen, sunburn, zinc cream, ice blocks, fish and chips, afternoon naps under hot canvas tents and endless hours fishing and swimming in the surf. The idea of a shared narrative is a concept I have continued to explore and develop over the past two decades with various projects including 'Disney Color Project', 'Melway Project', 'Hume Highway Project' ‘Love Letters’, ‘Medicine’ and more recently with 'The Passengers’

Titles

1. Hill'n'Dale

2. Statesman

3. Windcheater

4. Aero Lite

5. Regent

6. Seabreeze

7. Millard Triple Bunk

8. Glendale

9. Avondale

10. Evernew

11. Nipper Deluxe