Hayley Megan French

 Suburban Line Paintings, 2020-2021

For the past 4-years my partner and I have been in-planning to build a home in a new neighbourhood (new to us, that is). This process has changed the way I see the world around me. I began noticing more details. Details of homes, gardens, habits. Details of architecture, urban planning, suburban economies. Details of past, present, future.

They are all small details. Each with the potential to lead to a greater understanding of where and how we live. Patterns of footpaths, driveways, and lawns. Patterns of fences, verges, and roads.

These paintings home in on these details and their significance. They are a form of meditation on what it is that creates our sense of home and neighbourhood. They are part of a larger project creating a portrait of the suburbs I live and work in. It is a growing body of work that engages in a conversation about what suburbia means in the Australian imagination. At the centre of this conversation is home.     

When making this work, I think often of this text by D.J. Waldie in his book Holy Land; A Suburban Memoir:                   

“When I stand at the end of my block, I see a pattern of sidewalk, driveway, and lawn that aspires to be no more than harmless. That’s important, because we live in a time of great harm to the ordinary parts of our lives, and I wish that I had acquired more of the resistance my neighbourhood offers.”