DARREN SIWES

b. 1968, Adelaide

Lives and works in Adelaide, South Australia.

Language group: Ngalkban, Arnhem region.

The influence of Darren Siwes' art continues to hinge around conflicting cultural hierarchies and class delineations in the context of place and identity. Siwes sees his work residing somewhere between truth and  hypothetical, between reality and the imaginary and describes his work as 'Hypothetical Realism' where life in the real and life in the ‘what if’ can be intertwined. Within this context Siwes embellishes the truth by blurring the boundaries between opposing poles, to distort truth from untruths and to stir the comfortable in with the uncomfortable.

“To date, the artist’s signature style has been that of physically inscribing himself into the landscape as a ghostly or real Indigenous presence, and in moving beyond this to the landscape of the mind, the imaginary, Siwes is charting new territory. He is also moving into the private sphere and, as dramaturge rather than subject, explores restrictive bourgeois ideas of colour. Ideas many prefer to keep behind closed doors.”

(excerpt from Mum, I want to be Brown by Catherine Speck, 2006)