As part of the 2008 Next Wave festival Dunkeld artist Trevor Flinn has collaborated with Melbourne-based artist Cecilia Fogelberg to create an arresting multimedia installation in Platform’s unconventional gallery space underneath Flinders St Station ...
Platform’s below-ground, glassed-in display cases are what Trevor calls a subterranean alternative to Myer’s windows. The show, titled The Puma, The Stranger and the Mountain, offers viewers a unique opportunity to see how a country-based artist and his urban counterpart have tackled bizarre legend and landscape in their own distinctive styles.
“Living in Dunkeld you can’t help but appreciate the awesome presence of Mt Abrupt and Sturgeon, landforms that have dominated the landscape for eons. I often feel overwhelmed by the landscape and find it difficult to translate into art. Therefore the stranger of the title refers not only to my own relationship to this land but equally to the relationship that introduced animals, like the puma, have with the landscape. “
The Grampians puma is regarded by many as simply a good story, perpetuated to scare children or impress gullible tourists. However there are also those, both locals and tourists, who will maintain that they have seen something they could only describe as a big, black cat.
Trevor’s fascination with the puma began in primary school when he would walk through the bush with friends.
“I remember experiencing a mixture of fear and desire at times, especially when we came across particularly eerie scenes like dismembered sheep. At any moment I half expected to come face to face with the big cat.”
The puma, unlike the fox and the rabbit, was introduced to the area not by early settlers but supposedly by US troops stationed in the area during World War II. The story goes that they were kept as mascots, and were released into the bush at the end of the war.
Trevor began this project as an attempt to document the legend by interviewing local residents who had had a close encounter with the elusive animal. But after compiling hours of video testament he decided to shelve the lot because in his words: “I felt I was transforming my subjects into characters from an Errol Morris film.”
Trevor changed tack and began creating actual puma costumes in the hope of capturing something slightly more poetic and amusing on film.
“My hope was to give the animal a mythic, larger than life quality, to somehow complement the Grampians landscape, and explore these feelings of fear and desire I had for the puma.
“I soon found a strange delight in dressing as my quarry. And in no time at all my puma alter ego began to exhibit rock star qualities. After roping in my sister we soon found it necessary to form a band, which quickly became known as The Meat Eaters.
“Since neither of us could play an instrument the idea of making songs seemed obvious. I felt that it was important to establish The Meat Eaters as some kind of quintessential underground band in order to transform the puma from a feral outsider to a venerable and enigmatic character who could conceivably guest program Rage.
“In no time at all we had uploaded our film clip to Youtube and were ready for our ultimate role as the shortest-lived, underground, animal band ever to feature in an underground exhibition space.
“My work at Platform tells the classic tale of the rise and fall of a rock band investigating as it does how fame, booze and narcissism contribute to both the destruction of innocence and the creation of a legend suitable for the public’s never-ending appetite for the salacious. The numerous pieces on display include video, sculpture, printmaking and photography and present the puma as some kind of contemporary rock artifact.
“I realised from my own transformation from a struggling artist in regional Victoria to suddenly appearing in Melbourne as one of the Next Wave, that there was something fascinating about the way many new bands seem to follow the same old parabola; rising from obscurity for an instant before quickly returning to their anonymous origins.
“The world’s current obsession with art, music and fame is something I find both troubling and strangely compelling. My ongoing search for meaning in such a world is accompanied by an overwhelming desire to practice some kind of narcissistic display – which I’m convinced is something we all secretly desire.”