The realm of the domestic is immediately established in the exhibition Against the Grain by the expansive work Carpet, 2005, a large floor-based sculpture comprised of small, puzzle-sized blocks of wood that cuts a swathe through the gallery space like an enormous hall runner. 

Carpet’s impressive scale but low-key delivery manages to both welcome and lead in the viewer (or guest) while simultaneously creating a sense of anxiety through the work’s seemingly endless reach.  Based on the pictographic quality of children’s drawings of neighbourhood and home, the blocks of various timbers that mark out the street and rows of opposing houses comprising the work’s pattern, reflect the subtle shifts in colour that can occur in a woven carpet or the similar signs of wear and tear created by repetition of use.[1] 

Like much of Honeywill’s work in the exhibition, Carpet draws its inspiration in part from the relationship between the natural and built environment and specifically alludes to the manner in which Australia ’s ever-expanding suburbs are literally carpeting the landscape.[2]

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Catalogue Essay cont.