Tags for This Work

• Architecture
• Change
• Street scene

• Australian dream
• Housing
• Suburban landscape

• Built environment
• Painting

Inspiration for This Work

Currently within my own suburb, many old, cottage-style homes are being demolished, only to be replaced by new pre-designed kit homes, ("McMansions") and multiple adjoined dwellings. This redevelopment of suburban residential areas is an ongoing process, reflecting the transient nature of the built environment and demonstrating shifts in the ideals upheld by the notion of the "Australian dream" - an image that has been redesigned to accommodate a demand for bigger, cheaper and more efficient construction processes. In direct response to the needs of a growing population and the environmental threat of urban sprawl, the quarter acre block is also being replaced with duplexes and villas, allowing more people to live closer to the city with less native bush land being cleared to accommodate them.

Student Biography

After an initial interest in portraiture and figurative works, I was recently inspired my parents' decision to replace our family home with a pre-designed kit home, or "McMansion", to engage in several bodies of work exploring the urban landscape and its ephemeral, ever changing appearance. As each generation attempts to place its own stamp on the community, we see buildings constructed, demolished and replaced in a continual cycle of regeneration and rebirth, whether it be to meet the demands of an ever increasing population or to minimise the impacts of urban sprawl on the environment. With a preference for the drawing and painting mediums and a realist style, I have used examples from around Sydney, including the urban renewal project at the old Prince Henry Hospital site at Little Bay, in my efforts to capture and explore this transient characteristic of the urban environment within my paintings and drawings.

Other Works by Amy