Push it, push it (real good)

An exhibition produced for Firstdraft (NSW) in 2019. Push it, push it (real good) explores the experience of navigating a wheelchair across difficult terrain. Utilising video, painting and installation, the project foregrounds the exaggerated physicality and repetition of movement required to master assistive equipment.

Using a wheelchair is an endurance sport. It can be painful, exhausting and strangely beautiful. Shopping trips are obstacle courses, crowded bars are an exercise in patience, kerbs are mountains and puddles inland seas. Rocky paths should be conquered, the alternative is a pedestrian life mediated by synthetic surfaces and sanitised experiences.

A repeating pattern of cracked asphalt painted onto wallpaper is stuck to the wall of the gallery. On this wall are two flat-screen televisions showing a two channel video of the artist navigating a woodland path in the English summer time.

The video is edited together from 36 takes, shot from six different angles and uses costume changes to highlight the number of repetitions. The video is on a three minute loop.

On the gallery floor is an ISA symbol (International Symbol of Access) crudely constructed from dirt and rocks, hinting at the frustrations that accompany woodland adventures. There are also small drawings of ISA symbols on paper scattered throughout the sculpture.

On the opposing wall is a small painting on cracked asphalt with light green text. The painting displays the text "push it" repeated over and over again. This painting is reflected by a similar work with the same text but rendered in bitumen paint on the wall perpendicular to the video. The opposite wall is painted light green.

Installation view of Push it, push it (real good). showing two channel video, a painting and a temporary sculpture
Installation view of Push it, push it (real good). showing two channel video, a painting and a temporary sculpture
Installation view of Push it, push it (real good). showing two channel video and a temporary sculpture
Installation view of Push it, push it (real good). showing two channel video and a temporary sculpture
Installation view of Push it, push it (real good). showing two channel video and a temporary sculpture
Installation view of Push it, push it (real good). showing a text painting on asphalt
Installation view of Push it, push it (real good). showing a temporary sculpture
Installation view of Push it, push it (real good). showing a temporary sculpture

  • The struggle is real. Two channel, HD video with sound, wallpaper, charcoal, acrylic an oil paint, spray-paint . 2 minutes duration

  • Forward motion, make you sway like the ocean. Road marking paint, 30 yr old brine cured asphalt, chewing gum.

  • Got the boots that’s black to match. Bitumen paint, 30 yr old brine cured asphalt.

  • Breathe together. Washed river stone, paper, biro. Variable

  • 02 - 25 Oct 2019

  • Firstdraft, Sydney, New South Wales.