Cathy Drummond, The Auction, 2000, painting
Summary
Painter and printmaker Cathy Drummond has a keen eye for the everyday, as well as for the often-small joys it can bring. Since the 1980s, she has been recording the urban landscapes of Melbourne in her realist style, building up in acrylic a social and spatial history of the town she calls home.
In this painting, the house auction gives a focal point and sense of drama to the street scene. The action is taking place on Station Street, North Carlton, a suburb formerly within the municipal boundaries of the City of Melbourne. What immediately strikes the viewer is the casual atmosphere of this scene, painted in 2000. It is in stark contrast to the bunfights of our own supply-and-demand-challenged times, in which thronging crowds and frenetic performances by real-estate impresarios are de rigueur and the outlandish prices reflect an overheated market.
Depicting her home street and with one subject based on her son, the artist infuses this work with a quiet intimacy. People are relaxed. A nonchalant dog sniffs at bushes ripe for a cocked leg. Vintage jalopies denote a bygone era. Drummond's painting records a past period of this inner-northern suburb, its community now altered not only by the march of time but also by the demographic force of the property boom.
