Kenny Pittock Fancy Feast, 2024 Enamel and synthetic polymer paint on aluminium 120 x 120cm. Photo by Emmy Clifton.

MARS Gallery presents Kenny Pittock’s fourth solo exhibition, showcasing a new series of found shopping list sculptures that playfully ponder the notion that often in life The Little Things Are The Big Things.

Kenny began collecting discarded shopping lists when he was 15 and got a part-time job at a supermarket, it was then he noticed that anonymous shopping lists read almost like poetry and could act as a portrait of the people we pass in the supermarket aisles. Most shopping lists are written quickly and without aesthetic consideration, and it’s through the act of slowly re-creating them that Kenny allows himself the time and space to appreciate these seemingly mundane everyday objects, creating a permanent record of a fleeting moment.

The large scale artworks featured here mark a significant development in Pittock’s practice. The works are hand sculpted in aluminium and carefully hand painted to replicate the original found shopping lists. By pushing the boundaries of scale, these works both literally and metaphorically elevate and celebrate the everyday. Of the six large works made in this series, four are included in this exhibition, while the other two are currently on display in the Art Gallery of New South Wales as a finalist in the Sulman Prize, and in Geelong Gallery as a finalist in the Geelong Contemporary Art Prize.

The Little Things Are The Big Things also presents a new series of twenty-one hand-sculpted ceramic shopping lists, expanding on Kenny’s recent collection presented in last year’s Melbourne Now exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, which was acquired by the NGV.