Whistle and I’ll Come To You

Welcome to my creep show. There’s something unavoidably corny about painting horror seriously, as opposed to a more ironic approach which can leave you sneering at your source material. Clichés (or archetypes) abound: the death’s head, the revenant, the lurid suggestion of sideshow alley. I have given up trying to escape them.

 

The action takes place in my childhood neighbourhood of Mosman—an area which, contrary to the way it’s normally presented, is the perfect horror movie setting. The exhibition title is borrowed from M.R. James’ 1904 ghost story Oh whistle and I’ll come to you, my lad. It’s not a reference to the short story itself, rather an expression of the way certain characters move in and out of my paintings, and the way ideas can creep up on you.

Statement from solo exhibition, 2-12 April 2014, Sheffer Gallery, Sydney

Red Wall, 2010, Oil on linen

A Small Dark Painting, 2012, Oil on linen

Thompson Street Gothic, 2011, oil on canvas

Closer, 2011, Oil on linen

Rotunda, 2010, Acrylic on linen

Night Portrait, 2013, Oil on linen

Monster Tree 3, 2011, Oil on linen

Monster Tree 2, 2011, Oli on linen

The Gully, 2012, Oil on linen

Cry, 2012, Oil on linen

Gully 1, 2010, Oil on linen

Blue Portrait, 2009, Acrylic on linen

3 a.m. Demon, 2012, Oil on linen

Ghost Head, 2008, Acrylic on linen

Katerina Sakkas, Cypresses, 2011, acrylic on linen

Whistle and I’ll come to you, 2014, Oil on linen

The White Death, 2014, Oil on linen

Vanishing Point, 2013, Acrylic on linen