HEATHER STRAKA | The Strangers’ Room Trish Clark Gallery is pleased to present Heather Straka’s second solo exhibition at the gallery, The Strangers’ Room. Conceived as a rich coda to her earlier Maori Chiefs series of adjusted portraits by Victorian artists, adorned with religious, political and cross-cultural references; and mindful of the identity politics and historic idealism inherent in current global migration …

The Attendants was takes inspiration from the exquisitely groomed uniformed assistants in the Japanese department stores and mannequins in sex shops. Combining this with the genre of murder mystery and science fiction, informed by films such as Blade Runner and Twin Peaks. These paintings are deliberately staged as and named as a range of adult manqué ‘playdate’s’. 2010 oil on canvas 60 x 90 …

“Tyrants conduct monologues above a million solitudes.” – Albert Camus “Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love…” – W. B. Yeats If world events polarise us, the paranoia they cause also tends inspire the madness of crowds, particularly when atrocities, threats and fear result in the ethical paradox of swapping passivity …