Airing Dirty Laundry
Bartley and Company Billboard, Wellington, 2011-2012.
“Vanessa questions the ideals of fine living presented in home and lifestyle magazine to present what she says is a more common reality of organised chaos.
Her billboard features a photocollaged aerial view into her family laundry room.
‘I like the idea of bringing messy lived-in spaces into public, to present a real picture of what domestic life looks like. Perhaps it allows those sharing a similar day to day struggle a sense of relief, counterbalancing the tidiness and sleek minimalist ideals of homes usually presented to us in the media,’ she says.”
Connecting with Art, by Alison Bartley
“Crowe also currently has the billboard space outside Bartley and Company Gallery in Ghuznee Street. Here she literally gives her dirty laundry an airing, with a bird’s eye view of her family laundry. As in Makeshift Living the collage is punctuated by floating white geometric spaces. They initially suggest a kind of modernist abstraction, but they ultimately operate as a kind of criticism of modernism. Art that truly reflects the balancing act of life – Crowe’s work seems to suggest – is far less about some kind of internal harmony than modernism has led us to believe.”
Crowe’s Immersive Photographic Patchwork by Mark Amery
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