gnomesville
As invited feature artist of the month for the forest Heritage centre in Dwellingup (2008) I developed this body of miniatures inspired by the communal art of Gnomesville.
Spilling out and blanketing across the isolated south west landscape, the Gnomesville village multiplies by the week. Visited by international travellers and vandals alike, Gnomesville tends to bear witness to the same problems of security, law and order that most societies bear.
Godlike creatures fondly spawn gnomes from car boots or boxes with signs lovingly etched with their family moniker or purpose: “not goin’ gnome!” or “ecognomic rationalist”. Some supreme creature unknown to anyone presides over this sprawling megalopolis, tending to the pathways, edging garden beds and re-positioning the Gnome order in the instance of mishap.
Lovingly abandoned the gnomes would say there’s no place like gnome, what with the rolling gnomes playing every night this gnoman empire knows it’s special. The magic of Gnomesville is it’s secret and unseen collection of community spirit. Absurdly lurid marks on the landscape these miniature kitsch versions of the Agnkor Temple’s Pra Thom are slowly absorbed into the environmental fold. A gnome hand thrusting forth a light emerges from a sea of swirling leaves and forest detritus. Not unlike a Pompeii garage sale, this bizarre civilisation begins to feel as though it has secrets to share.
The smashed remnants of a gnome lay scattered before a collection of fellow gnomes, pondering their friend’s fate with mixed expression. Without the recklessness of the vandal destruction one wonders if Gnomesville would seem less precious, less in need of voracious love and protection, connection and commitment. After all, no one appears to know how or where it began, but it has grown on the love and laughs of many.
New narratives spring forth from the remains of many ruined gnome carcases, smashed in a moment of hedonistic chaos. In a biting parody of humanity these new broken narratives begin to reveal something else.