The Thousands

Despite the title of this show, Simon Lovelace is a bit of an icon. Or a ‘colourful local character’ at the very least, who lives and works in Surry Hills with his exceptionally brilliant three-legged Jack Russell, Albert. He paints, he does light-boxes, there are sculptures, there’s photography, he produces music, he runs a gallery. One of the very first paintings I bought after I moved to Sydney was a Lovelace; I still have it and like it a lot but I’m not allowed to have it hanging up because it is too NSFW for my mum’s sensibilities.

‘Uncle Simon’, as I tend obnoxiously to call him, is sort of a Pop artist, but not really. Sure, the Pop look is there, with meticulous detailing and finishes and imagery appropriated from retro commercial sources, but Lovelace’s work doesn’t have the self-referentiality and, dare I say it, iconicity of the classics of the school. It’s more sex and death, with a weird alchemy by which cheesecake, superheroes, bondage and bad language come together as social observation. Plus, some of the works are so shiny you can totally check your hair in them.