Rising star Brook Andrew busy earning his stripes

SYDNEY Festival kicks off a pivotal year for artist Brook Andrew.

Brook Andrew

BROOK Andrew is in the throes of a particularly acute giggling fit. The Melbourne-based artist is recounting, between conniptions, the one and only night he spent in a caravan.

"I was eight, and I was with Mum and Dad and my grandparents on our way to the mid-north coast of NSW and it was raining heavily," he says. "We stopped at this caravan park for the night, and the old van we got leaked. It leaked everywhere. (It was a) nightmare."

The artist's infectious giggle rises to a hearty chortle. "You know the type of caravan I mean - one of those old, daggy-looking things. Just so daggy ."

Andrew, the affable rising star of the Australian contemporary art scene, does not do daggy. He does, however, do caravans.

The 41-year-old's Travelling Colony, a multi-faceted artwork consisting of seven redecorated caravans - replete with "sideshow freaks", fire-twirlers and circus performers - will form a centrepiece of the Sydney Festival's opening night in Hyde Park on Saturday.

The following day, the caravans, bedecked in the artist's trademark black-and-white dendroglyph pattern, will make their way in convoy to Carriageworks, the arts precinct in Sydney's inner-city Redfern. Once there, Travelling Colony will take on a very different artistic dimension for the festival's duration.

The vans will be on display at Carriageworks as part of the precinct's Black Capital program. "People will be able to sit around in the caravans and watch videos of interviews I've done with people who live in, or have a connection, with Redfern," Andrew says.

The quietly reflective artist, whose zig-zagging shield pattern and use of neon light have more brand recognition in the art world than his physical countenance, is certainly in high demand.

Last month, Andrew was one of 12 artists awarded a $160,000 Sid Myer fellowship for artistic development. He has a permanent installation (Marks and Witness: A Lined Crossing in Tribute to William Barak) in the foyer of the National Gallery of Victoria's Ian Potter Centre and will soon have his work featured at the entrance to the revamped Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.

Titled Warrang, which means Sydney Cove, Andrew's permanent work at the MCA will be set in stone at the entrance of the harbourfront premises' new $53 million extension. The work is a 2.6m-high neon arrow that will be mounted on the building's facade pointing to the 200-year-old docks that lie beneath the MCA, formerly the NSW Maritime Services Board building.

"Originally, I wanted a big glass surface where you could look down at all those historic fittings," Andrew says. "That wasn't possible, but you'll be able to see the work right across the other side of Circular Quay. It will be a wayfinder for people."

The work, which will be unveiled when the MCA reopens on March 29, was commissioned when builders excavating the site happened upon the timber docks, which date back to 1796. The colonial structures could not be touched in accordance with their heritage listing.

Andrew's luminous arrow will be accompanied by a piece of prose, penned by the artist, at the foot of the installation:

In the loch, blood stricken, time hidden lay lost, under this place of birth, under your mind lies a tunnel, under this stone, salty darkness, forgotten place of docks and ships.

"It's not about guilt, it's not about happiness," says Andrew. "You stare at the text and you reminisce about it; about the history of the place."

History informs Andrew's art; he uses traditional ideas as a platform for contemporary thought. But while the Aboriginal-Scottish artist says he is inspired by his Wiradjuri tradition, he is quick to point out that it does not define him.

"No matter what culture you're from ... and let's face it, most of us these days are mixed, we draw from whatever's inside," he says. "Of course there's complex issues of anthropology and authenticity that some people grapple with, but most of us just get on with it. It's just life.

"What is indigenous? What's not indigenous? What's urban? What's not urban? I don't listen to any of that. I just live my life."

Andrew knows, better than most, things are not always black and white. In November he found himself the subject of an article in Art Monthly by academic Fiona Foley, who criticised him for operating under the "umbrella of his pan-Aboriginal identity".

Foley claimed Andrew had previously been accused of using source material without seeking permission from its indigenous owners.

But Andrew says the claims are based on "personal reactions" and not "cultural protocol".

"The Aboriginal art world is somewhat vexed, and there are important issues of post-colonialism that need serious unpacking," he says. "I understand Fiona is a passionate advocate for her perspectives on cultural rights. But there have been differences of opinion and perspective on the notions of use and appropriation, which is another story altogether.

"I mix the richness of my culture with a lot of other things."

Still, Andrew's Travelling Colony - an idea he first developed at an exhibition in The Hague in 2007 - takes on a distinctly indigenous flavour. Despite a rise in property value and increasing gentrification, Sydney's Redfern remains an Aboriginal stronghold in Australia's largest city.

"There are many stories about Redfern to tell," he says. "The suburb has a great history, and so much colour."

Andrew's caravans may be painted in his traditional pattern - "a metaphor for the optical and hallucinogenic nature of contemporary culture, and the way in which we may be persuaded to think or do things a certain way" - but there is a twist.

"These caravans will have different colours. It won't just be the black and white pattern. There will be red, white and blue, and yellow, gold and silver ..." his voice trails off, perhaps flashing back to that experience on the NSW mid-north coast, mentally redressing the van's myriad aesthetic flaws.

"I'll be picking up on the interiors. You know, fancying them up. Making them fun and vibrant," he says.

This year is an important one for the artist. He is also curating Taboo, an international indigenous exhibition at the MCA towards the end of the year. "The MCA approached me after the work I did on 2005's Blakatak program. They wanted me to expand on that."

Andrew was born in Sydney, spending time as a toddler in Enmore before the family moved as part of the great urban sprawl to Werrington in the city's outer-west. Despite having been based in Melbourne for seven years, he still pines for his home town.

"I miss it a lot living in Melbourne," he says. "But I'm in Sydney all the time. I have family, friends and projects. It really keeps me busy."

He has recently returned from a month-long stint overseas, having visited and exhibited in Seoul, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin and Hong Kong, where he is working on an animation concept with Imagi, the studio that produced a film remake of cartoon classic Astro Boy.

Sitting, cup of coffee in hand, in one of his half-painted caravans, Andrew concedes he's never been busier. He is, in a his own way, something of a travelling colony: artist, performer, circus, caravan.

"I've got a lot on," he says, with only the slightest hint of lethargy. "A lot ... but, you know, I love it."

Andrew leans back dramatically in the doorway of the van, casting an eye over the soon-to-be-refurbished interiors, and flashes a grin. "This one doesn't even leak."

Brook Andrew's Travelling Colony is at Sydney's Hyde Park, Saturday; then Carriageworks, Redfern, Sunday to March 4.