The Big Fizzle, 2018
Porcelain, MDF, timber, smoke machine, ‘Art Legend’ medallion, tape, plush blanket
100 x 85 x 30 cm

The pink pig is a big fizzle. It’s a fully functional smokin’ *cough* that’s just all goss. Alas, like “the white elephant in the room” it’s a bit of a useless pile of *a-choo* if it’s not even going to be plugged in. It’s like asking randy Rudolf to lead the slay but then taking away the very viagra which keeps his rosy nose red and his *coooo-wee* pointing in the direction Santa needs it.

It’s all there, it’s capable, it’s promising. Sadly it’s all a show with no delivery.

souls’ festival
today also there is smoke
from the crematory
(Matsuo Bashō, 1644-1694)

With or without intention, cigarette butts start bush-fires and snowballs start avalanches. What happens next not even the pink pig knows.

First exhibited in Dis-Honours at Visual Bulk ARI, Hobart, Tasmania in December 2018, then in Time Horizons at Sawtooth ARI, Launceston, Tasmania, 8th-23rd February 2019.

Dis-Honours and Time Horizons comprised a group exhibition of artists who studied at the University of Tasmania’s School of Creative Arts in Hobart in 2018. These artists were among many students who dropped out/deferred or had their projects compromised by the unexplained loss of supervisors and the degradation of arts education at the Art School.

The two exhibitions responded to the relationship between art, artists and institutions - The ethics around the mechanisms that govern the arts in the academic realm and how it influences artistic practice and freedom.

As someone high up in the institution put it “So, you're in a larger process and it's been an unhappy one… we will therefore come back to you about the way forward. I think, that's important. Recognising these different time horizons... “