I head to the supermarket, the CarPlay interface emblazoned with WAVE OF MUTILATION by the Pixies. The title of the song undermines the pleasure of the music with visions of conflict—victims of war strewn across rubble.
The bitumen ahead is subtly imbued with political rhetoric: LEFT LANE ENDS, MERGE RIGHT.
Now in Aisle 6, packets of WIZZ FIZZ spark early childhood memories of swimming under the shadow of Luna Park, sun-soaked and sucking on a plastic spoon filled with sherbet. Over to Aisle 12, cleaning products promise to REMOVE ALL STAINS. How marvellous—all regrets just washed away.
Bike out, I pump my tyres in readiness for riding, their black rubber embossed with DO NOT OVER-INFLATE, an always helpful reminder to keep one’s ego in check.
Riding home, I pass a piece of discarded cardboard, its printed matter reading: BASIC LIFE SUPPORT — air, water, food, work, love.
As I near my destination, a local church sign declares: FREE TRIP TO HEAVEN. Ironically, my thoughts turn straight to suicide, an action not commonly rewarded with eternal salvation.
For the past 12 months, Chris Town has obsessively filled small, spiral-bound notepads with words he encounters daily— always seen, never heard.
The resulting works, composed of layered text, represent the constant barrage of information we face and the cognitive overload we subconsciously sift through. By editing these collected words and presenting them as singular statements—later repainted and reformatted—Town imbues them with new, personal meaning. This process involves reframing both the semantic intent and the visual representation of specific word combinations, offering new ways of perceiving language. This exhibition serves as a record of those words: what they mean to the artist, and what they may mean to you.