Christopher McVinish Quiet lives ‒ Australia Day revisited

‘Quiet lives’ is an ongoing theme in my work: paintings of buildings in out-of-the-way places, in this case a tiny country town west of Sydney, but it could be any small town. I’m very drawn to places that have no outward sign of life. I’m intrigued they survive and evolve through the ravages of time and economic circumstance to become a sort of portrait of the occupants behind the facade. I’ve been back several times to this one and it gives off a palpable sense of the passing of time in the landscape. The Aussie flag is a permanent fixture, fading like the building. Whoever lives there made the effort to make a statement by hanging it.

- Christopher McVinish, 2015