Building Investigation 3

The Soccer Cards of Victoria Road

acrylic paint, soccer cards, cardboard

7"x 13 1/2"

The Soccer Cards of Victoria Road piece was the third sustained investigation of a series of 15 and I chose to "investigate" buildings from my childhood in Sydney that held meaning to me. The buildings I have painted here, were some of the ones I was most excited to create for this sustained investigation. Basically, soccer cards were really popular at my school and especially among my friend group and we always got all of our soccer cards before school at the corner shop. Then we would get bread from the turkish bakery (Sunny Hot bread) and go and play with our soccer cards somehwere. I also fondly rember shuffling through my soccer cards and playing against myself while in line at OB Cuts for Men. This was before I was told by all my Italian, Irish and Chinese friends that I couldn't get my haircut there because I was white and that was the arab hair shop.

This was my favorite piece yet and (obviously) consists of 3 different pieces, and I carefully selected which places on Victoria Road were specially enough for me to paint. Then I sketched them all out in my sketch book. After I sanded down the cards to get the veneer off and added a white base layer before I began painting. The carboard background relates to the boxes that were seemingly always on the street.

This project was another stroll down memory lane, and I have vivid fond memories of all 3 locations, the smells from the bakery, the loud arabic conversations at OB Cuts for Men and of course the cranky chinese guy who owned the news store and upsold 4th grade boys on soccer cards. After the slight disappointment I had after expiramenting on my last piece it was good to be back with a medium I am good at for this one.