Nicholas J.J. Smith
The Pipeline | This series comprises diptychs that juxtapose two kinds of images. On the right, a pipeline that one sees here and there across northern Sydney. Like train tracks, it exerts a fascination -- a pull of possibility.
On exploration, however, it turns out that it runs "from nothing to nowhere": it emerges from the ground in one suburb, runs for about ten kilometres across various suburbs and a national park, and then disappears into the ground again. On the left, hangouts of the sort one finds all over Sydney (and in many other places too) -- in bushland reserves and waste ground, under freeway overpasses and bridges, anywhere a little but not too far off the beaten track. Places where people go to chill, to paint graffiti -- in general, to escape "the pipeline" of work, school and expectations. njjsmith.com
