Gallery 13 - Sunrise Boulevard

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- Friday Evening Next Door
- Henry In My Back Yard
- The Blue Fence
- The Vacant Lot
- The Appraisal
- Early Morning, Sunrise Boulevard
- Cul de Sac
- Dusk At Number 16
- Gallery Installation Shot

Two years ago I moved to a suburb near the sea. My Studio is in the back garden so I spend a good deal of my life in this environment. These paintings evolved from a series of photographs that I took of a street near my home. The exhibition is named after the street.

Instability, insecurity and apprehension are at the core of this series. I feel the new times we live in need a more direct voice. There is a nostalgia at work for a more recent past and a more understandable world.

I have always felt that suburbia is the true heart of Australian culture. Just as Hollywood feeds the spirit of the American Dream; TV soap operas like Neighbours and Sea Change feed the Australian Dream - a paradise in suburbia where our children can play, where we can grow old with grace and we are wrapped in a sunny blanket of security.

I find that although the sun shines on brilliantly, the streets where I live are usually empty and though the place is occupied, my neighbourhood is strangely uninhabited. Perhaps these paintings are my attempt to populate the streets where I live and express some deep disconnection between people and place.

James Guppy
July 2005

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