ANDREW MERRY
Edgewood
Edgewood #6 2006,
pigment print, 38 x 56cm
$605 (inc GST)
Edgewood #14 2006,
pigment print, 38 x 56cm
$605 (inc GST)
This exhibition documents
the creation of new suburbia
in the far western edges
of Sydney from an aerial
point of view. The series
both appropriates and
subverts the commercial
medium of aerial photography–a
medium normally employed
to sell property, is
instead used to explore
aesthetic and cultural
issues. The aerial perspective
offers a certain compression
of distance and many
of the photographs are
dense with visual information.
Some of the images reveal
a graphic aesthetic,
where others, featuring
infrastructure such as
arterial roads, appear
as miniature models.
What occurs in new suburbia
also reflects broader
cultural values as the
Australian house has
become more desired,
even fetishised, since
the property boom. In
new suburbia there are
fewer trees and houses
have become larger and
indistinguishable with
architectural designs
that often suggest a
neoclassical grandeur.
Australia is one of the
most urbanised countries
in the world. At the
city limits of the Sydney
metropolis the recently
rural is enmeshed in
a relentless process
of urbanisation.
