Artwork Description
For Rent was a temporary laneway artwork that comprised a giant full-scale photographic print of a typical Australian suburban house, complete with dog in the window and bicycle in the yard.
The print was fixed within a simple metal frame to a painted concrete wall in Tank Stream Way, at the junction with Bridge Lane. Set low on the wall, the image created the illusion that the viewer could step closer to the house, from real pavement to photographic road.
Close by on the wall a hand-written sign, in red paint on four rusty metal panels, read
ROOM FOR RENT
APPLY OPPOSITE
Mattler wrote of his work:
A basic human need is a secure place to live; a luxury to many inhabitants of the world.
My image represents a house from a time when life was seemingly less complex.
A house where memories remain of time passed.
A childhood lived within the confines and security of a solid, simple home.
The memory of a neighbourhood: and all those that pass by the front gate and beyond.
The installation of my signage ‘Room for rent, apply opposite’, questions the manner in which we inhabit our home environment.
A family home can be divided into a share-house for those of us willing to encounter, and live with the company of others.
Many houses throughout the inner city and surrounding suburbs have at some stage been share accommodation, or boarding houses.
Home is where we make it.”
ARTIST
Born in Takapuna, New Zealand, Rocket Mattler now lives and works in Sydney having undertaking a Bachelor of Arts, Photography at RMIT in Melbourne.
Rocket’s work has featured in numerous group shows since completing his studies in 1998, including exhibits at Melbourne’s Gertrude Street and the Centre for Contemporary Photography as well as Deloitte, Virginia Wilson Gallery and the Macquarie University Art Gallery in Sydney. In 2015 Rocket was the winner of the Special Commendation Award in the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize.
