“In the house of my childhood there was always a sense of disturbance born of too much repetition and too much denial of the self in the service of others.”

Greer Honeywill

Greer Honeywill’s sculptures are at times, unsettlingly revealing.  While born of motifs to which we can all relate – the home, the domestic, the role of women, the ties of family – our experience of these meticulously constructed objects is never so straightforward. 

Initial introduction to Honeywill’s work may establish a sense of cosy familiarity, but it is not long before their confessional nature takes hold and we come to realise the tensions barely held in check beneath their pristine wooden surfaces.  These sculptures are embedded in ‘the personal’ and informed by memory, and in discussion about her practice, as well as her writing on it, the artist liberally draws upon her childhood experiences (and particularly, those of her mother) in suburban Adelaide in the 1950s.  But it’s here that questions begin to be raised and things start to get uncomfortable.  Are the hints of frustration, the weight of expectations and responsibilities, and the sense of immense, but ultimately constrained grief that are conveyed ever-so-quietly by these works, really a reflection of the artist’s life? 

Memory is an unreliable and fickle beast and truth can be elastic at the best of times.  Honeywill’s command of ‘the everyday’ – of stories neither told nor valued, emerges from this uncertain space, where truth and storytelling coincide.  As a result, her practice enables us to reflect upon the changing nature of the home, while also highlighting the broader implications of our continuing fascination with ‘the great Australian dream’; that three-bedroom house on a quarter-acre block in suburbs.

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Catalogue Essay cont.