For the very first time, Noel McKenna’s fifteen-year project of large ‘Map’ paintings are presented in full. The series takes a marvellous approach to ordering the contents of Australia along ingenious themes such as public swimming pools, dangerous animals and butterflies.
With a wonderful wit, these works overlook the redundancy of physical maps in our era of global positioning systems (GPS) and Google Earth. Instilled with a sincere interest in his subjects, these labours of love reflect on who we are as a nation by looking to an inventory of our contents.
McKenna shows that the minor elements of the world don’t just repeat and reappear — they add up to something great. While it’s true that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, it is still, to a point, the sum of its parts.