Lauren Burrow, Exiguous Plains Carpark Gallery 2019 (installation shot). Courtesy: the artist and NAP Contemporary, Mildura, VIC.

Curated by Dr. Helen Hughes (a Senior Lecturer in Art History, Theory, and Curatorial Practice at Monash University) Mildura Atrocity Exhibition takes its cue from the history of the NAP Contemporary building, which used to be a Volkswagen salesroom established by NAP co-director Riley Davison’s father, Garry.

The exhibition includes a range of sculptural and wall-based works that reference the form of a car. Burchill/McCamley (appearing courtesy of Neon Parc) present two customised car seats with steel bases. Alexandra Peters has included a suite of shaped canvases based on the car doors of Subaru’s Forester line. And Lauren Burrow’s works are a plaster-cast of a three-metre-long scratch made by a car key (the artist’s own Mazda 3) and a number of car windows sourced from wrecking yards, which Burrow has embellished with bioglitter and rhinestones.

The title of the show is a nod to the British sci fi author J.G. Ballard, who exhibited three wrecked cars in a London gallery in 1970 in an exhibition titled Crashed Cars, and published his famous novel Crash three years later.

Opening Event: Friday 10 February, 5:30pm floortalk, exhibition opening from 6:30pm.