Xero’s airline safety card paintings express an urgent interest in some salient aspects of modern culture – the changing status of the aircraft and air travel, contemporary art and design, the status of painting as an art form, the search for a universal language, and even the threat of imminent apocalypse.

Their bright colours, strong lines and bold designs are inherently modern. Evoking the safety cards they are inspired by, these works also point toward cartoons and comics, street art, pop art and safety diagrams – in short, much of what we identify as modern visual culture. Yet at the same time, their singular composition seems to quietly echo that of traditional religious paintings and icons.

That these images are taken from airline safety cards points to both the technological dreams of twentieth and twenty-first century society, as well as its recently increasing obsession with “safety”. A closer reading of them suggests that much of what we understand as safety information functions more by assuaging (or provoking) our fears than by providing us with useful information in the case of emergency.

In this way these paintings question the information that comprises contemporary culture; its function, its status, its value.

Location

Off the Kerb Gallery
66B Johnston St
Collingwood

Gallery hours:
Thursday – Friday 12.30-6
Saturday – Sunday 12-5