The artists included in The New Poverty work with media as diverse as balloons, contact paper, mailing envelopes, and discarded auto glass. Although the intentions and themes in these works are varied and complex, they emerge from humble materials. The show suggests that the office-supply warehouse and the junkyard are quarries from which art materials can be extracted in the twenty-first century-and that the distance between the two is ever-shrinking. Although intrinsically critical, these works suggest an identification with the pleasures of consumer culture, as well as a kind of pathos or even mourning for its possible decline.

Art-like independent film-does not require a Hollywood budget. Richness and complexity sometimes emerge from strict constraints, such as a poverty of materials and means. Artists have always wrestled with these constraints; as the boom-time flood of money recedes, it is time to pay attention to this way of working again.

EXHIBITING ARTISTS:
Erin Fraser
Jenny Heishman
Brad Miller
Sarah Morris
Dan Painchaud
Ingrid Percy
Stephen Rayner
Nicola Vruwink

The New Poverty was shown at the Ministry of Casual Living gallery
(http://www.ministryofcasualliving.org) in Victoria from 6 June through 20 June.

Information and images from the show are available at
http://www.ministryofcasualliving.org/poverty.htm.