GREENBACK explores Sebastian Di Mauro’s recent experience of relocation (from Australia to the United States), a move which echoes his grandparents’ earlier emigration from Sicily to Australia (1900-1920). In this new work, Di Mauro has appliquéd and embroidered green US-military issue blankets with representations of the culturally significant buildings used on US ‘greenback’ dollar notes. These works embrace the USA’s quilt-making traditions while also observing the differing cultural mores so visible to Di Mauro as a new resident. These five works in the series describe buildings that are amongst America’s most significant. The Lincoln Memorial, The White House, and The Capitol are used on the US$5, $20, and $50 notes; yet their architectural elements also evoke di Mauro’s Italian heritage in the columns, arches and domes adapted from Renaissance traditions.
Join Sebastian and Louise Martin-Chew at 4:15pm just prior to the official opening event for a ONExchange discussion about this new body of work.
Image: Sebastian Di Mauro, $5 (from the GREENBACK series), 2018, US military blankets, cotton tread, 80 x 60 inches (203.2 cm x 152.4cm).
