Tony Bishop: The Green Green Grass of Home (2010)

Tony Bishop paints the Southland landscape with an eye as much for what is there as for what is not. He tells stories of social change, environmental risk, cultural expression and builds dialogues of unease. Nothing is as it first may seem - the stylised, manicured, altered landscape has become a factory of green grass and whilst that maybe sweet to look at, it tells a tale of ceaseless change.

Titles encode narratives of consequences - “Some Bloke Made me an Offer…” and “The Scourge of Dairy Farming” present the relentless advance of dairying and reveal the power of money. “Rob the Rabbiter” achieves his living from an endless pest. What is the real price paid, for progress and financial reward? Is it that the rural landscape becomes homogenised, mechanised and only a means to an end?

“Little Boy Lost” like a Hemingway short story contrasts the simple beauty of a fluid landscape with the biting tragedy of a death by neglect. In “Rural Compass” Bishop establishes the road sign as a metaphor of choice.

Bishop employs humour, irony, impending event and menace as key narrative devices. He contrasts perfection, order and the places where people exist with how they live – he shows them to be alone, to be nowhere particular and embarked on roundabout journeys. Is the rural circumstance of NZ so dire that paddock racing is all ‘bogan’ culture aspires too?

Event listed by Milford Galleries

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