Damien Minton Gallery, Sydney
8-25 October 2008
I have vivid memories of long hot summer days when I ran wild with my brother shooting at him with a shiny silver gun that I could pull deftly from my cowgirl holster. Together he and I invented the rules of murder and death. We also spent hours under the dining table where a menagerie of plastic animals roamed and a locomotive raced murderously around its track causing certain death to any hapless animal that wondered into its path.
In this series of assemblages I have tried to evoke that time in childhood when one is able to fuse the edges of reality and play: to draw from a time when everything is possible and the discoveries of fear and death are tempered by joy and innocence. This series was created with affection and irony, often having a slightly malevolent edge. The works are constructed from vintage boxes, tins, toys, bric-a-brac, and collage. Concealed inside are music boxes and mechanical movements. Wind one of the works and listen to the music resonate as an emu dances or a ship rides a wave.
Di Holdsworth 