The situation that an individual is pitted “…against something he cannot control. Such as time or fate, or the gods.” and that “..the problem seems to be a strange or unbelievable coincidence….”   is where the collaborative duo of Trevor Bly and Patrick Doherty seem to currently dwell in. Tales of misfortune and trials of character have tested the rigour of what these two artists represent and replacing the quest for the eternal and suburban sublime we now encounter new work revealing struggle and regression. Something has again shifted within the geography of Craigie. An incident has occurred with such trauma and grief that it has altered the foundation of home, traditions, practice and place.

In his 1992 essay “The World and the Home” cultural theorist Homi Bhabha refers to such a strange conflict as “the unhomely”; an extended and expanded concept of Sigmund Freuds unheimlich (uncanny). This subjective moment is defined and guided by a number of similar components shared with the uncanny; repression, narrative, fear, estranged familiarity but the separating factor from uncanny to unhomely is personal space. As Bhabha states “In that displacement the border between home and world become confused; and, uncannily, the private and the public become part of each other, forcing upon us a vision that is as divided as it is disorienting.”  

Based on the current signifier’s the incident in question certainly fits the unhomely criteria; the clash of culture, mistrust of embraced authority and the new uncertainty of fate. Marc Auge labels this “false familiarity”, Bhabhas defines this as “unhomely”, Trevor would call this “unfortunate”. In an effort to please or combat the neighbourhood gods though Bly has produced a number of silkscreen offerings including what appears to be animated capes or flags, fabrics of the community with anthropomorphic qualities similar to Shamanistic robes.  Blurring the lines between micro nationalism, hijacked political agendas and ceremony, the robes wield weird fantasy power where supernatural insignia and a distorted, yet familiar heraldry play out the battle royal for power, propaganda and position. Even though these enchanted cloths would suit more on the back of a super hero genre they still hold real world presence here in the gallery space and further fuels Craigie’s fictional narrative and exaggerated myths. 

Doherty contributes to the super natural house party with his finest self-deprecating outcasts, nobodies, sub’s and wizards. Dressed head to toe in outlandish colour and regalia his internal private citizen’s assist and hinder the process of resolvent creating the right amount of juxtaposition to Bly’s overarching statements. Freud would label Doherty’s visuals “id’s”; the disorganized part of the personality structure that contains a human's basic wants, desires and instinctual sexual drives. His visual language is chaotic and unbalanced but amongst the scenarios is an exploration of hyper fixated relationships that would be more appropriate behind closed clinical doors than a public viewing.  The beauty of Doherty though is also his curse. His honest confessions of self-sabotage and excessive destructive behaviour contribute to the artistic conversations that benefit both artists. Bhabha recognises these juxtapositions as “freak displacements”. Unstable conditions where “otherness” can exist and the real magic can occur. Doherty would claim he is the most interesting person in the room, others would just call him a shit cunt.

The un-homing event suffered by the pair was unbelievable, uncertain and real but both Bly and Doherty are now making with experience and confidence. The narrative of this cul-de-sac practice has serendipitously for the artists taken a sharp left turn. A new chapter of re-examination of their fundamental themes (especially for Bly) along with the introduction of somewhat new iconography and resilience to again define space (both suburban and other) establishes a different stage. Let’s hope for Bly at least that Craigie quickly disappears and someday soon we as an audience can really find the truth beyond the postcode.

Alan Leavens

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Auge, Marc. 2009, Non-Places; An introduction to supermodernity

Bhabha, Homi. 1992. The World and the Home

Masschelein, Anneleen. 2003. A Homeless Concept; Shapes of the Uncanny in Twentieth Century Theory and Culture

The construct of identity informed by place has been a staple concept amongst writers from Walter Benjamin, William Blake, Daniel Defoe and numerous visionaries through the centuries of the Arts.  The idea and influence of an over- arching locale creating site specific behaviours, codes and aesthetics is still prevalent and ingrained in the practices of local clubs, gangs, families and to some extremes result in distinct neighbourhood nationalism. This type of urban reverence for a period also found a place in the suburbs of Western Australia, specifically Craigie.

During the late 90’s and early 2000’s Craigie provided a common ground for an artistic subculture and there was integrity measured through its localism. That foundation, rituals and territorial boundaries were removed nearly a decade ago and replacing what was once an experience through site (the Craigie walls) is now a new housing estate, a reoccurring banality of suburbia with any genius loci (spirit of place) absent from the terrain. 

What did prevail out of the removal of those sacred landmarks was the 14-year union of Trevor Bly and Patrick Doherty, two very different artists who have unexpectedly shared a collaborative practice enjoying the act of making while also celebrating place. From that combined practice though Bly has been the captain to wave the northern suburb flag, a personal agenda and cultural debt to make Craigie strong again. For Bly, his home should out shine its neighbours, offer salvation for those that seek it and continue to secure any suburban sovereignty remaining; his little village needs to be eternal.  

The notion of the eternal amongst global landscapes and cities can be linked to such places as Rome, New York and London. Making the international eternal player’s list isn’t easy; the site must be grandiose of place, history, magic and endurance. More importantly the site as British writer Peter Ackroyd portrays in his critiques of London and reviewed by David Charnick is a place “beyond the confines of time, which maintains itself by interaction...inspiration for those receptive to its mythical qualities.” (1) Rome’s reputation wasn’t built in a day and with Craigie’s fame as a “giant toilet” as reported in the West Australian newspaper Bly at least has a long road ahead.

So, what are social implications of the destruction of a site; displacement, tension, loss, division, disempowerment?  These themes lead to further manifestations of fear, crime and suffering; an overload of initial negative experiences that created a historical forced migration of our two artists from the territorial northern safe house to new foreign land (greater Perth) and beyond.  

This unique wandering team was no longer bound by manmade restrictions and local barriers but informed of global grandeur and Gothic qualities; as Gerry Turcotte writes in his essay Australian Gothic “All migration represents a dislocation...”. (2) This sense of aimless wandering and disconnect from home “..emphasises the horror, uncertainty and desperation ...... often representing the solitariness of that experience through characters trapped in a hostile environment.” (3)

That environment and those characters make up the visual landscape in this body of collaborative work through the majority of Patrick Doherty’s contribution. Patrick has his own style, a bizarre balance executed through gestural marks in lead, paint and pencil. He continues to explore universal themes of politics, war, the taboo and the human condition overlaid with his brand of Australian Gothic. It is a world of modern anxieties dressed in a carnival of colour, deception and blended realities. There’s darkness in his drawings, an alternative map to living while a playful sense of the uncanny is examined, “..a journey to the sublime via human horror” (4) but all of this is his guise just to draw.

The sorcery needed for this perpetual suburban myth is also a little different. Its old magic from rituals (the act of graffiti) no longer connected to the site now infused with romanticising a past time of mainly young men. English writer and essayist Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) notes his quest for mystical drifting and the self-fashioning of an eternal experience was to add a little substance to your life. His North-West passage “the concealed entrance to the magical realm” (5) Coverley, 2010:101) for the other half of this duo can no longer be accessed through Craigie. The dated realm walls have been removed and a straight edge attitude has prevented him any admission to urban enlightenment. Like Bly I recognise De Quincey’s magical importance for the sake of the eternal but you can’t trust it. It’s unpredictable, raw and intoxicated. That is why it’s on the shoulders of his friend Doherty. He’s more adept at handling the spells and vices of a modern age and assigning their post visual priority.

From observation Trevor is more concerned with the survival of Craigie; the enduring legacy of traditions, identity and place. As a thematic subject his home (6025) and what it represents has yet to be fully explored as evidence in this survey of combined work. He acknowledges self-appointed roles of instigator, artist, propagandist, historian and eternal maker. If his version of this suburb, local narratives, past and psyche is to be spectacular it’s on his shoulders. Once again Ackroyd puts it best when investigating the idea of sacred geography “..if we lose sight of our inheritance-then we lose sight of ourselves….” (6). 

Place is a complex topic when referring to our ‘timeless’ check list. The original landscape that would have gotten us a clear path to the eternal is not there. The site is now a memory; blurred, distorted and fuzzy. There are artefacts that remain, images of past movements but grandiose has moved. Place now truly exists elsewhere.  Attempts at transferring and transforming a buried memory, a set of expired aesthetics and relationships from one site to “another” presents challenges. Grand is a hard thing to create so in the meantime it is reinterpreted in the artist’s version of beauty. Place is now offered and explored through collaborative text heavy homage’s, prints and postal signifiers. French philosopher Jean Baudrilllard’s refers to these as simulacrums; objects, actions that try to replicate tradition but aren’t true accounts.  In transferring that specific urban grounded psyche though Patrick and Trevor have made new and authentic declarations and as Baudrilllard further argues “a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes truth in its own right.” (7)

To recap the case so far; a 14-year partnership formed by site, a forced gothic migration from home, a transfer of local identity and aesthetics, magic fuelled by marijuana and red bull’s and a pursuit for the consecration of a giant toilet. These two hobos may have argument for a winner. ☺

By all other accounts this neighbourhood should have been flushed a long time ago but through the haze of suburbia it has inadvertently navigated an optimistic path, a true north passage. The continued survival of Craigie’s tale has meant that original local character, traditions and values including a collaborative art practice has had to adapt and adopt along the way. Supported by the evolving graphic propaganda of Bly and Doherty and their quasi Dorian Gray quest at forging suburban myths makes the eternal line appear a little closer. The real test though is not if these two artists can sustain this joint practice but where will Craigie’s legacy fall when the flag flies at half-mast?

Alan Leavens

As I sit down, trying to gather my thoughts on Trevor Bly and Patrick Doherty, my mind is a mess. I should have started this weeks ago, and I’m supposed to be on my way to Casuarina Prison to visit a friend for his birthday. He had called me a couple of days before and told me he was bringing in juice boxes and a packet of Caramel Crowns, that we were going to have a party in the visitation room. The guy I’m getting a lift there with is running late. This has left me quite irritated, as this boils down purely to his own ineptitude (he haphazardly double booked a doctors appointment AND a haircut on the same day and time as a prison visit.) I hate waiting around for people. Why can’t people just figure out when they need to be somewhere, and get there 10 minutes early? It’s not like an inmate can just meet us somewhere else, even if it is his birthday. That being said, one gets very used to shit like this happening so I just grit my teeth, stare off into the distance and take a long draw on my cigarette. I’ve been the guy running late before; so I guess I’m not angry, just disappointed. 

And in a way, I guess this is a reflection of the dynamic between the two artists I have been asked to write about. Trevor seems to be the motivator, willing to put himself out to help others like Pat. This is shown in his work, methodical and clean, processes are followed and steps are taken. It’s all very plain and simple. He sees something he likes, he depicts it. Strong contrasts, clearly delineated. He sees something he hates, he depicts it. 

This then weaves and bumbles its way down the metaphorical road, humming and whistling dixie until it smashes headlong into the apocalyptic flaming car wreck of Patrick Doherty. 

Cue heavy metal cassette backing track, fire and brimstone, eccentric schizophrenia. I’ve spent time at Pat’s flat and watched him work. It’s really fucked. He has piles of shit everywhere, but he knows where everything is. He has pages of dog eared, loose leaf paper, all half scrawled on sprawling across the apartment. They are scattered everywhere, their dispersed essential for those times he has rolled over in a stupor, capturing his split second thought with a handful of naively smeared lines, quickly crawling back into his doona.

Somehow this odd couple make amazing work together. If I were to hazard a guess into how, I would say they balance each other out. Patrick will tell Trevor how completely fucked his new haircut is, and make him tell me the story about how ten inch millipedes crawled out of it on an aeroplane once. Trevor will tell Patrick to pull his fucking head in, to meet him at this time, for him to paint on this canvas and to go eat some food for once. They have a strange chemically imbalanced dichotomy, measured in equal parts straight laced milkshakes and the dregs of happy hour pints. This being said, they also have parts of each other reflected in each other, like some sort of northern suburbs ying yang. The end result is an amalgam of work that draws from the experience of the bittersweet suburban prison that is Craigie, and the idiosyncrasies that this shared experience gave them both.

I ended up getting to the visit on time, and I guess I shouldn’t have fretted so much. All in all, I guess this is a fitting end, as it all is just a little bit disappointedly vanilla.

James Hattrick

6:30pm

The TV beams light in my living room amidst a musty haze of cigarette smoke.

Text scrolls across the bottom of the screen. 

Australia’s senior most Catholic is accused of sexual assault, while an electrical fault causes an animal shelter to burn down. 

6:34pm

I spray on some cologne, it burns into a scratch on my neck, I order an Uber to the city. 

6:40pm

TV channel changes. 

There is a race riot in a small mining town, authorities are disappointed. An abortion ban is passed in nine states, women are protesting. 

6:48pm

I stumble from the vanilla-scented car and step inside the gallery. I walk straight to the plastic table disguised  with a ghostly white sheet, and take from it. 

6:50pm

A TV changes channel. 

There’s a leadership spill. Several children die in a hit and run at a school. The crossing attendant escapes without a scratch.

6:53pm

I don’t like what I see on the walls. I take a photo and post anyway.

2:00am

I fall asleep with the TV on. 

An electrical fault causes a fire. There are no batteries in the smoke alarm. 

Sam Bloor

Oct 2019.