Paper Wall

Visual art

Blurring the division between art and interior decoration, Paper Wall is an installation of hand printed wallpaper in one of Melbourne’s laneways, placing an interior in an exterior setting. Exploring the history of decorative pattern in domestic, rural settings, these contemporary designs are on display throughout the 2008 Next Wave Festival.

Patterns in Paper Wall include decoration from homes which contain a history with a particular sentimental currency: specifically, that of generations of women in Regional Australia. Rural women invite and include pattern and decoration into their domestic environment in many ways, so when these styles are pasted onto the walls of a Melbourne laneway, in a display that uncovers the secret crockery and napery patterns of domestic goddesses, they shout out a big HELLO! to all those closet Martha Stewarts who happen to wander by.

With Paper Wall, Melbourne’s graffiti landscape is turned on its head: family heirlooms that are a part of everyday lives, and the stories of their personal significance, have been screen-printed onto large paper rolls, replacing the graffiti motifs more common to the city’s laneways.