Archie Moore, Bannertree floor, 2021, acrylic on nothing, 204.00 x 99.50 cm, accompanying work: Bannertree (video), TCG22968
(photo: Nick de Lorenzo)

exhibited:

2024, At home with painting, curated by Madeleine Kelly, SCA Gallery, University of Sydney

2021 & 2022, Eromheen of erin (Round About or Inside), curated by Wouter Davidts and Angela Goddard, VANDENHOVE Center for Architecture and Art, Ghent University, Ghent (BE) and Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane

Artist statement:

The lino pattern on the floor painting is recreated from memory of the actual pattern in the house he grew up in. The video is of a place I have no memory of and a place my father never spoke about but, I am told by the person who provided the footage, that it is not much different in appearance than what it would have been when my father lived there.

The space my work inhabits is a psychological one — a space which had a major role in psychological behaviour. The interaction between people and these home environments. The emotional and physical absence of the father. The video makes me feel as if I am visiting the place where some cataclysmic event happened. The place has been emptied and I am like a ghost. This is the place where my father's first wife and family seem to go their separate ways as is implied in Electoral Roll and other documented information. 

The linoleum pattern reminds me of lying on the floor a lot as I did when I was sick or trying to get cool in the heat (the floor was always cooler). I never realised until recently that the Lino contained asbestos AND lead. I knew of the dangers of the fibro walls of the house as my father would repeatedly remind us of it. Lino is of the place where my father died (Tara) and the video is from the area where he was born (Inverell is near Coolatai).

I feel simultaneously connected to and disassociated from the place where I grew up and where my Aboriginal family is from. Also about memory but I often question whether I remember anything correctly as I never fully participated in the space or people around me (I have been told by doctors that I have 'disassociation').

I usually feel a little spooked by domestic interiors - especially of ones that resemble my home.

—Archie Moore 2021