work by
stuart elliott
peter dailey
amanda williams
graham taylor
patrizia tonello
ben jones
si hummerston
richard heath
...it can turn those that fit anywhere... into those that can fit only one place...
The Underpass Motel project has been described by its creators as a “small festival of manipulative, empty promises.” Starting as a Fellowship for Stuart Elliott, from the Department of Culture and the Arts in 2005, the project has grown to include Peter Dailey, Amanda Williams, Graham Taylor, Patrizia Tonello, Ben Jones, Si Hummerston and Richard Heath. This exhibition will premiere the Underpass Motel DVD, supported by paintings, drawings and props used in its making.
Stuart began with the concept of a fictional motel, located on the outskirts of civilization, on the edge of the world. He wanted to generate a movie trailer, for a non-existent movie based on the inhabitants and surrounds of this motel. He decided to bring in other people to build and share skills, Stuart stated, “the objective was to get together a group of stylistically diverse visual artists and generate a kind of visual art mosaic.” The resulting movie trailers ignored a linear time-line, or formal narrative, aiming for fragments of myths or stories that never existed. They are like a “series of musings, or dysfunctional daydreams of varying length and intensity whose common denominator is the Underpass Motel” claims Stuart. The artists have created seven movie trailers for The Underpass Motel, often in collaboration with each other.
Using his sculptures, paintings, photographs and collages Stuart began to animate snippets of dark stories to life. Using a camera to create stop-motion effects, his motel inhabitants and vehicles have a creepy primal aura. Pivotal to the creation of the movie trailers was the involvement of Graham Taylor and Patrizia Tonello. Graham has a background in building and manufacturing before teaching himself 3D computer animation, web and graphic design. Patrizia, a well known local artist, brought not only artistic skills to the project, but also found herself developing great editing and film skills. Together they have created a world that has incorporated Stuart’s themes and iconography, weaving a story about a yellow suitcase that keeps appearing, a case that is baffling police. Peter Dailey, with his similar sensibilities to Stuart’s, has created a theme of Genesis in the motel lobby. Beautifully drawn creatures, including fish and birds, pass through the lobby, and a fight ensues between two fantastic beasts over the yellow suitcase that has reappeared. Amanda Williams piece is dark and wistful, featuring a puppet-woman trapped in her motel room, dancing by herself whilst watched by an ominous shadow. Ben Jones, Si Hummerston and Richard Heath have brought their artistic talents together to produce a trailer combining film, costume design and Richard’s striking drawings.
Excerpt of dialogue from The Underpass Motel:
Some say the road less travelled is one of faith or rectitude. But roads less travelled also have the desperate and the careless, those for whom any road is the right road and the journey itself is the primary destination. The Motel used to be gracious and inviting when the highway coursed by its front doors and the world stretched out in all directions. Then the world shrank. The highway’s once nourishing river became the Motel’s stagnant ponds. The grace is long gone but the beckoning is still there.
In the past, it was said that motels had an obligation to entertain guests. Here, at the edge of the world, the guests entertain the motel.
The Underpass Motel.
The Underpass Motel DVD will be available for purchase, for just $33.00, from Turner Galleries during the exhibition. The DVD contains the 7 feature trailers, mini trailers and extras, along with a booklet. A catalogue will also be on sale.
STUART ELLIOT
artist statement 2009 >
'The aim of the UNDERPASS MOTEL project was to put together a video based art work, with a range of selected artists to contribute in a largely asymmetric, modular format. For me it has been helpful to think of it as a kind of group show composed in such a way that although there maybe no orthodox beginning and end (much the same as a gallery group show) there is an unavoidable linearity about it due to the medium itself which means that viewing more than one work (sequence) simultaneously becomes complicated. As the generator/curator of the project I have endeavoured to include a manageable number of people with as much common denomination as possible but also with enough diversity to get a range of experiences while maintaining coherence (I hope). I suppose too it is difficult and probably doubtful to escape my own sculptural roots in that with the range of people involved and the high probability of stuff being made for or as consequent to the process, I had in the back of my mind the possibility of a kind of gallery show featuring some of this material, if it became practicable. Kind of like a 'making of' deal only with forensic evidence in all its baroque front / timber & plywood rear, story board/working drawing equivalent.
The intended process was to take a number of elements and put them together using an over arching device to give continuity to an otherwise disparate collection of components. The common denominator (as indicated in the working title) is a fictional motel.
Unlike the classic motel which generally has a horizontal configuration, this motel is high rise, in the style of the 19th-20th Century hotel. Like many such hotels and unlike most motels, there is the potential for a number of almost hierarchical qualities to the facilities and interiors of the Underpass Motel. Like the standard motel there would be rooms for the general transit client or low resource itinerant and providence of venue/s for transactions predicated on vice. Unlike the standard motel, there could be suites for the long term guest or even resident. Or places were the tenants may be unregistered or unknown; suites where arrivals or departures are discouraged or thwarted.
There is also the indication of subterranean or covert sections - the presence of vents or access ways in places that seem disconnected to the predictable public areas of the motel. The motel is located beneath an overpass, beside a road possibly less traveled, hence its name. There is no indication of as to where the overpass is headed, what it's connected to or from.
On one side of the overpass is the Hollow City, an eclectic and often redundant place whose original purpose and role has apparently been subverted or ceased to be important to enough people. It may be just the doomed suburb of a greater metropolis written down prior to an ever postponed urban renewal obliteration.
On the other side of the overpass is the Void. An open, difficult place that is as unappealing as it is unexplained. It is referred to only indirectly and as a place that is assumed to be universally avoided.
The edge of the Void leads up almost to the rear of the motel and the Void's outer rim is peppered with the hulks and husks of long dead vehicles.
The basic concept driving the project was to create an alien/familiar context which could host as wide and unpredictable a set of contributions as possible. I wanted the Motel to be probably as much a psychological space as a physical one wherein fantasy, longing and acting out could all be accommodated but possibly not the linear, finite narrative arc. Where such a ‘story telling’ may occur, the intention was to truncate it from an over arching beginning and end. Much like a motel may present small, dramatic or minimalist scenarios but leave little hard evidence as to the origins and possible destinations of the players there in.
The Motel may appear plausible and actual or it may be more an event horizon or portal between two restless mutually exclusive realities.
Most of all it was an attempt to generate a common environment where those that make things, those that imagine things and those that are simply curious may have some bit of terrain in which to wander for a bit. Perhaps the providence of a place where the physical can develop an open ended dialogue with the ephemeral.'
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