Bystander Art 1

This continuing body of pictures is my visual response to the work of the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The Royal Commission’s final report was submitted on 15 December 2017.

My dismay at what the Royal Commission uncovered was fuelled by the rampant hypocrisy of certain church groups that often sought to deny or dissemble the victims’ stories. For me the culpability of these religious groups is appalling, and commonly contradicts the basic mandate to care for their communities, and children in particular; the Catholic Church of Australia being most egregious in the Commission’s findings.

In response, I commenced a body of paintings that sought to challenge the hypocrisy and dissembling by these religious organisations. My paintings are gestural, deliberately crude and blasphemous. The colours and drawing have a childlike quality that is direct, almost graffiti-like. It’s intended to imply a child knowing more than a child ought to know.

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