Frankston 2002

Summary

Melbourne-based social realist painter and printmaker Bill Hay studied art at RMIT and VCA during the mid-1970s and early 1980s. His work often engages with social and political issues, which is exemplified by a series of works he made documenting the Melbourne waterfront dispute of 1998.

Titled ‘Frankston’, this oil on linen was exhibited in the show titled ‘Political Landscape’, held at Collingwood’s Pre-View Gallery in July 2002, where it was purchased for the Art and Heritage Collection. The exhibition was concerned with Australia’s asylum-seeker crisis, and was held soon after the Howard government refused to let the Norwegian cargo vessel MV Tampa enter Australian waters with asylum seekers rescued from an Indonesian boat in distress. The painting’s two pictorial fields evoke familiar local, national and international organisations, all of which foster community welfare, values and safety.