Bite 37: Sam Foley - Intersection, Serpentine Ave and Canongate Rd, 2008

Intersection, Serpentine Ave and Canongate Rd, 2008, oil on canvas with projection, 200 x 118cm

A car approaches. You hear the dull, steady hum. Ghostly, appearing only as light on the canvas, headlights beaming, indicator blinking as it turns, a car passes across the painting. 

Streetlights flicking, the scene is eerily quiet - like any suburban street after dark - the only life the bright windows of houses hinting at the domesticity within, cars passing by. A window onto one such intersection, Sam Foley's highly original work captures this scene effortlessly, mesmerising in its envelopment, a simple but intelligent use of projection and sound with paint bringing the tableau to life.

Many great work of art focus on the mundane, emphasising the profundity of elements of the world around us which many of us ignore or do not see as noteworthy. This work achieves exactly this, venerating with oil on canvas a 'banal' streetscape after dark. Void of people yet populated none-the-less each car that passes speaking of loneliness and a uniquely 'suburban' frame of mind, a frustration within order.

Currently on view at the Pah Homestead, TSB Bank Wallace Arts Centre, Auckland.
Location on Google Maps.