words by ANDREW GAYNOR from the catalog essay for A SECRET LIFE OF PLANTS

"In a return to the phenomena of cargo cults and nature-worship, Simon Pericich introduces us to ‘a harbinger for a planet obsessed with a shiny greener future.’¹² Dressed in a faux-Nike jacket and with a face composed mostly of weeds, this scarecrow-of-tat bears little genetic relation to the ironic currents found in similar photographic works by Simryn Gill or Christian Thompson; rather, The Bastard Saint of Meritocracy (weedhead) is pure B-grade mock-horror, invoking Scream or Freddie Kruger. It is also grimly humorous, covered with crap bits of bling and splattered with discarded glitter, as if this innocent ghoul has just emerged from the leftovers of a consumer party gone way, way wrong. Pericich’s pet theme – ‘the colonisation of surface’¹³ – continues into the salvaged camouflage advertising backdrop, alluding to the idea that plants are not the only weeds. Culture itself can be just as insidious... "

[12] Simon Pericich, e-mail correspondence with the author March 09. [13] Simon Pericich, e-mail correspondence with the author November 08.

curated by Andrew Gaynor.Shown at LINDEN. & toured to FREMANTLE ARTS CENTRE

image/photo ; Marc Morel 2008

image/photo ; Marc Morel 2008

everybody cares and everyone is fine was created by simon pericich.

When there are so many legitimate problems in the world, and your not sure which one to speak out about, instead of writing a giant protest banner which reads, ‘say no to right wing fascist dolphin killing, tree logging, capo, racist, child molestering, gene altering, nuclear power plants elitist drunk and drug fuelled immigrants who steal our jobs and have same sex intercourse etc ect’ why not build a multiuse protest float which caters to everybody’s needs? The car used in this work is a Humber, which is the type of car the politicians and royalty were chauffeured around in back in the early years of Australia. This work is a epitaph and monument to an archaic and no longer effective mechanism of social change.

*a great amount of thanks to* Doug Heslop, Ken, Nicki and Keiran.

Artists include: Rebecca Baumann, Aidan Broderick, Marcus Canning, Thea Costantino, Annabel Dixon, EricaAmerica, Caspar Fairhall, Pamela Gaunt, Rodney Glick & Lynnette Voevodin, Brendan van Hek & Consuelo Cavaniglia, Bevan Honey, Matthew Hunt, Laura Johnson, Shannon Lyons, Pilar Mata Dupont & Tarryn Gill, Bennett Miller, Tom Muller & Rochelle Phillips, Tony Nathan, Poppy van Orde Grainger, Simon Pericich, Ben Riding, Kevin Robertson and diode, Bruce Slatter, Eli Smith, Justin Smith, Ric Spencer & Peter McCaughey.

◳ LINDEN1968 curated by Hannah Mathews & Ben Riding.