Exhibition: From Humble to Huge by Wayne Brookes

From Humble to Huge

The crucible for this show actually began with Clarendon House and Woolmers Estate. The shift from representing European interiors was initiated by the realisation that there are significant local examples of spectacle. Raymond Arnold once presented a forum in which mentioned his fascination for the monument to the pioneering aviator Harold Charles Gatty in Campbell Town. He suggested that you could draw a line through the hollow interior of the sculpture and connect Tasmania to France. That connection became ‘From Humble to Huge’.

A proposal to examine mid- 19th century design on alternate sides of the planet came to fruition with a Residency at The Rosamond McCulloch Studio in Paris and research time in England at the beginning of 2020, just before ‘lock-down’. I am fundamentally a portraitist, an assembler of identity, a custodian of spaces and objects. Be it country estate or suburban domicile, the introspection of Covid quarantine enhanced domestic curatorship, it galvanised our nest because home is where the heart is.

We surround ourselves with expressions of ourselves as we make our nests as comforting, secure and nurturing as possible. Our fingerprint is articulated within the objects we choose to decorate and enhance our lives and our space. My sojourn through local domestic and historic environs further fortified my lingering belief that an individual’s portrait is far beyond an epidermal façade – it’s not your face, it’s not your body, it’s not even physical – it is your taste.

Image: Wayne Brookes, The Clarendon Catharsis, 2017

Acrylic on canvas, 90x120cm framed.

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