Dream team

For close to three decades, Jon Campbell has produced works of art that celebrate the particular character of his 'leftie, westie, working class' view of Australia. His work centres on Australian suburban life and culture; drawing on rock music, car culture, and local references such as neighbourhood signs and motifs. Campbell is sincere and honest in his approach, and viewers find a comforting humour in his paintings of suburban backyards, neon signs, and placard-like text works. His use of the common vernacular isn't designed to mock or deride; rather, it speaks of a genuine desire to articulate and share the character of a community. Since the mid-1990s, Campbell has regularly used typography in his work for its capacity to succinctly, if sometimes obliquely, convey the complexity of the relationships between art, design, advertising, and localised culture. In Dream team, Campbell reflects on the agency of language to define the heavily fetishised threshold that distinguishes a true fan (or initiate) from a mere spectator. For Australian rules football fans, the concept behind Campbell's new multi-panel painting Dream team (2012) hardly needs explanation. Selecting his subjects from across generations and teams, Campbell has chosen his top twenty-two players' nicknames and rendered them on small-scale boards with the skill of a master signwriter. The hand-held scale is important, recalling the signs fans hold up at live games, as is the choice of colours and fonts for each name.