Where the Sidewalk Ends

“Where the Sidewalk Ends” engages with the dualities that exist within our perceptions, blending the boundaries between what we see as safe and what we fear. In these paintings and ceramic works, landscapes are reimagined as spaces of both comfort and tension, drawing the viewer into a world where interpretations are intentionally fluid and destabilising.

Carney’s exploration plays out in a series of vignettes where each scene carries a dual narrative. The works invite viewers to consider how easily our minds can turn the serene into the sinister, the familiar into the uncanny.

Windows, both literal and metaphorical, are a recurring motif throughout the exhibition. These windows—sometimes suggested by the metal frames that surround the works—act as thresholds between worlds. They offer glimpses into spaces that are at once inviting and unsettling, allowing the viewer to peer into moments of quiet ambiguity where the line between observer and observed is delicately blurred.

Carney’s art invites contemplation on the fine balance between opposing forces—beauty and fear, safety and danger, inside and outside. Through this interplay, the works encourage viewers to craft their own narratives, offering a space where imagination can roam freely, shaping personal interpretations from the tension and contrasts presented.

Michael Carney is an interdisciplinary artist found most often working with paint, clay, digital and virtual reality mediums.

His practice began in 2009 as a painting undergraduate at the University of South Australia where he was introduced to ceramics as his minor. By 2016 he had completed a Masters by Research (Visual Arts) where both ceramics and painting became the predominant processes in his exhibition practice.

Both ceramics and paintings blend contemporary and antiquated aesthetics to present work that plays with notions of time in flux. Works that are rendered or figurative are often shattered with a gestural flourish forcing the viewer to continue to explore the pictorial plane for a familiar foothold. His work stops short of overt explanation, whilst ontological themes and philosophies are presented, he prefers to activate the viewer’s own contemplation within the broader theme.

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