About the exhibition

JOHN HINDS                        Wallpapers…. Searching for Australia

Following an extensive 2007 tour of the UK, Hinds has examined the nostalgia and the cultural links that Australians still shares with Great Britain, despite 200 years of history.

He directs our attention to the topic of identity as still an extremely relevant one, evidenced by the ongoing republican agitation, moves to change the Australian flag and the current fascination with the Royal Weddings.

The shock of the harsh new Terra Australis has always been contrasted with the cool and damp of Olde England.

Hinds has appropriated the established wallpaper form to gently and affectionately mock the anglo-centricity which still pervades parts of our culture. The popular English motifs and patterns are, by their very character, a contrast to everything 'Australian'

Wallpaper embraces a variety of perjorative meanings, including 'cheap mass-produced banality and inescapable bad taste.'

By its very nature wallpaper is considered a 'lesser' art-form, often created with sentimental or cliched designs thought to have the to widest appeal.

Historically it can be viewed as an indicator of domestic tastes, and the changing influences of fashions.

Wallpaper is associated with the cheap and cheerful covering of imperfections, followed by the sad inevitable decline into shabby neglect.

In the 19th century William Morris challenged the prevailing standard of design, and redefined the form as 'high art for the masses'

Since then many artists, including MacIntosh, Tiffany, Dufy and Calder have designed wallpapers as individual creators.

Hinds has used a hand-cut stencil technique (Pochoir), and a range of colour palettes taken from interior decoration, to mimic the vocabulary and infinite replication of wallpaper.

The further inference that custom papers may be commissioned, cuts across the exclusive nature of artistic creation, and questions the status and roles of the Artist and Client.

Oscar Wilde quipped on his deathbed

"My Wallpaper is killing me, one of us will have to go!"

                                                                                                             John Hinds 2010

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