ARKLEY 1994.167

Despite the appearance of parody, the meticulously decorative surface of Stucco home is a careful portrayal of the suburban home motif that fascinated Howard Arkley for over a decade. He began to use residential imagery in 1978 when he painted his ‘Doorway’ series, which reproduced the patterns of flyscreen doors. He was struck by the remarkable variety that could be found within the limited frame of suburban design. That something so banal and ubiquitous could generate such an array of stylistic variation alerted him to the ways in which the suburban house is a means of self-expression for its inhabitants. Arkley’s interest in suburbia was partly a reaction against the mythic status of the outback landscape among Australian artists, most of whom live in cities. He has remarked of the suburbs: ‘Something like 89% of Australians live in this environment . . . it’s something that’s denied so often.’