Witsey has taken a selection of the poker machine “toppers” and mounted them on lightboxes, effectively isolating the images from their normal environment and forcing the viewer to consider the ludicrous – and insidious – nature of the graphic design.
“I like taking these images and putting them somewhere where they can be considered carefully,” he says. “It’s minimal art and very clean in its presentation, and I hope we can bring focus to the detail of the images.
The show also features a faux wishing well that could have come from a fairytale.Credit: Dean Sewell
“They are so bizarre. Kind of pure fantasy, in a way. But there’s also something extremely sinister. They’re harvesting money from people. They’re nasty things.”
Entitled Good Fortune, the show reflects Witsey’s ongoing fascination with the idea of luck and also features a faux wishing well that looks as if it belongs in a fairytale.
The exhibition is being staged at Laila, a new gallery that has taken over an old ambulance station on the corner of Edinburgh and Victoria roads in Marrickville.
“I’m so grateful to have this space here,” says Witsey. “I’ve got a lot of friends working really hard to get things like this going, but it seems like a really uphill battle in Sydney.
‘The chances are very slim. But I can make a wish and hope.’
Harrison Witsey
“It’s so upsetting when you see something like the Sydney Modern project or other large-scale projects that have huge amounts of funding. There’s no shortage of wealth at the top, but for people emerging and coming out of art school, there’s very few spaces.”
Responding to the suggestion his works would go well in the Ainsworth Family Gallery itself, Witsey agrees it would be “a very fitting show in that gallery”.
But he’s not holding his breath.
“The chances are very slim,” he says. “But I can make a wish and hope.”
The Art Gallery of NSW was contacted but declined to comment.
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