Carolyn McKay
Sydney Exhibition
Opens Wednesday 22 June, 6 – 8pm
Runs 23 June – 3 July 2022
Join us In Conversation with Carolyn Mckay and Brian Joyce
Sunday 3 July 2pm.
Artist Carolyn McKay studied both Criminology and Visual Art. The Crime Scene Motel Project emerged from her teaching Criminal Law at the University of Sydney when she became aware that a series of strange, supernaturally-inspired sexual assaults had been committed in nearby cheap motel rooms.
“Located on major arterial roads, the motels exuded urban decay: I immediately booked a room. Since that time, I’ve found urban and regional motels that are sites of petty crimes, sexual violence, meth labs and occasional murders. My method has been to sleep at identified NSW establishments and ‘forensically’ photograph each site: stained carpets, grubby furnishings, unremarkable appliances. In embracing the banal, the images provide mundane clues of extra-mundane human experience.”
Carolyn has received many awards and has been selected for artist residencies including The Lock-up in Newcastle and Bundanon. She has held solo shows at James Harvey Gallery and Cooks Hill Galleries, joint shows at Artarmon Galleries, been a finalist twice in the Archibald Prize and has had nine portraits selected for the Portia Geach Memorial Award. Her work has been selected for other major exhibitions including Salon des Refusés – both Archibald and Wynne, 10 x 10 x 10, Fishers Ghost Art Award, Conrad Jupiters Art Prize, Redlands Westpac Art Prize, The Waterhouse Natural History Prize, the John Glover Art Prize in Tasmania, Waverley Art Prize and the Mosman Art Prize.
Australian public collections include Blacktown City Council, Bundanon Trust, Mosman Art Gallery, The Lock-Up Cultural Centre and Waverley Council. Carolyn’s work has been reproduced on the covers of Law Text Culture, Volume 14 Law’s Theatrical Presence.
Overseas public collections: the unbound A Book About Death collection (group show in New York) has been acquired by MoMA New York, the LA County Museum of Art Research Library, Los Angeles and The Tabernacle MoMA Wales. The Um Libro Sobre a Morte and TROY ART works have become part of the permanent collection of Museo Brasileiro da Escultura, Sao Paulo Brazil.
Artist Statement
The Crime Scene Motel Project examines a particular social site, the motel room, and its place in the catalogue of crime scenes. Motel rooms present a unique conflation of intimacy, privacy and anonymity with transience, motor vehicles, strangers, sex and the uncanny. The Crime Scene Motel Project emerged from my teaching of Criminal Law at the University of Sydney Law School when I became aware that a series of strange, supernaturally-inspired sexual assaults had been committed in cheap motel rooms. When I realised the motels were just down the road from university, I did a quick drive-by. Located on major arterial roads, the motels exuded urban decay: I immediately booked a room. Since that time, I’ve found urban and regional motels that are sites of petty crimes, sexual violence, meth labs and occasional murders. My method has been to sleep at identified NSW establishments and ‘forensically’ photograph each site: stained carpets, grubby furnishings, unremarkable appliances. In embracing the banal, the images provide mundane clues of extra-mundane human experience.
