Suellen Symons

14 September - 29 September      Redfern, then and now

Link to artist's website

Suellen Symons, who has lived in Redfen, not far from Slot for many years is now moving on. By way of farewell she has assembled an exhibit that recalls a moment, generations ago when Redfern was subdivided to provide terraces for that generations gentle folk. Patiently Suellen has watched as the gentle folk of her own generation have reclaimed the same streets of terraces. Just as patiently she has watched apartment blocks replace the warehouses built over demolished terraces that had replaced the farmlets hewn from the not so virgin bush of Aboriginal Australia. There is weariness to Suellen’s patience in her departure. We discover a-new in the glorious now of our arrival, blissfully defined by what ever was there on the day. Then something changes; there is an improvement, other things wear out. Decay does battle with sentimentality then, almost before we notice there is comfort in the bits that survive from whenever it was that then was. The joy of Suellen’s parting gift to these streets that we have only ever known as old is the moment of their newness. For me it evokes an eventual yet equally remote completeness that we will never see. For Suellen this is an obituary to now and a lament for what was and longer is, offered as she is subsumed into the glorious now of elsewhere.

- Tony Twigg