South of No North

McKenna's Priest in Room feels like it escaped from Picasso's blue period with its optimism intact. Picasso's harder realism from the period doesn't make the leap, but the cool bleakness of scene does. At its centre, the priest sits behind a candle and religious toy blocks. Amid the grey malaise, he's a ray of diligence,  reassurance and optimism. His eyes radiate warmth much more than his candle. Eggleton's Untitled from Troubled Waters and Untitled (Greenwood Mississippi) move this same sense of urban drift outside.

The warmth of McKenna's images of animals and people are the highlight of the show, especially Boy Dressed as Batman's mix of adult savvy and child's instinct,  as well as Boy's room, Brisbane 1967 where a watchful cat stands in for a missing owner. He also paints three of Australia's oversize roadside attractions, including the Big Rocking Horse, Gumeracha. They match nicely with Eggleton's Untitled, Memphis, a striking photo of a child's tricycle framed as though gargantuan.

The composition and subjects of Aberhart and Eggleton's photography are beautiful. It's hard to deny their technical skill. But the distance in these images is relentless. They are not new images, many coming from in or before the 1970s. They show big American urban sprawl, where the pop culture of the roadside attraction mixes with the realities of everyday life. It's a combination of cool and decay.

A decade ago there would have been easily enough fun in that to hold up an exhibition. But since 2000, pop culture has given us more nuanced explorations of rural and urban wastelands, like Ghost World or No Country for Old Men. The American cultural overflow we receive by proxy on our screens these days have moved on to weightier themes and to different locales, the occasional Breaking Bad notwithstanding.

It's hard for a contemporary Australian viewer to connect with these empty spaces without a stronger sense of who should be filling them. There's no fault in the photos themselves. They are simply orphaned here in 2013. Their emptiness doesn't move you. And they don't bring the past into the present.

Noel McKenna, Big Rocking Horse, Gumeracha, South Australia © the artist