These series of photographs by artist Sloggett are both humorous and sad in a strange contradictory way. As aptly stated on the catalogue, it’s a white trash lost love story. There are no niceties here, these are the working class and poor suburbs. You couldn’t tell where the photos have been taken, as the locations have no obvious landmarks. It is irrelevant to the photographs as they could be in any Australian suburb.
I’m a big fan of photography that explores contemporary Australian life from a working class perspective. It’s real, nasty and existing. I also relate to it living in the western suburbs of Melbourne where things aren’t always pretty and lattes aren’t corner regularity. You have to find humour and oddity to make the grind bearable.
One of my favourite photographs is “Not quite right” which is an image of a sign from retailer NQR selling discount pavlovas which is emblematically Australian. “Throw Syringes in the Bin” was a photograph of a sprayed sign on a disused building brick wall with arrows pointing towards both a boarded up window and a roller door.
I believe it’s important that suburban life is documented and it would be interesting to see a particular area photographed over a period of time as people move and change the surroundings. There is always something in a suburb to document whether it be subtle or unseen. Sloggett has found his niche in contemporary Australian photography.
Ends 29th of October.
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