NeighbourHOODS – Pennyrose Wiggins – solo exhibition

The essence of a Hawaiian shirt in Darwin

THERE ARE SOME THINGS that are quintessentially Darwin: such as the louvred C5 upstairs houses, dry season smoke, road trains at Coolalinga and the bats at seven o’clock. Pennyrose Wiggins once again delights us with her fine drawing and softly rendered landscapes as she captures some Top End states that exude all the tropical charm of a Hawaiian shirt – nostalgic, classic and joyful – with Top End Gothic eccentricity.

TOP END GOTHIC

The smoke, the lofty high cumulus build-up clouds, the ever present cranes of Darwin development, Carpentaria palms with their tropical silhouette and the much loved and long abandoned Rite Price supermarket in Nightcliff, form the familiar backdrops to this unique exhibition. As a follow-on from previous work, Pennyrose continues her Top End narrative painted on old car bonnets and truck mirrors, a quirky and interesting sculptural surface.  Slightly battered, worn and rusty, painted in such a delicate way with the finesse of her fine brush work, it brings to life these scenes that are both banal and yet so unlike anywhere else. There is an eerie disquiet and yet there is a hint of drama in the smoke wafting into clouds. There are the vistas and the wide spaces hinting at isolation: on the edge, the frontier to another world – that is, the Top End; there is no other place quite like it.