Little White Lies—SA Nationalist Ambassador 1990

ArtLittle White Lies—SA Nationalist Ambassador 1990
Little White Lies—SA Nationalist Ambassador 1990 by Victor Gordon

Little White Lies—SA Nationalist Ambassador 1990

Little White Lies—SA Nationalist Ambassador 1990Oil and acrylic on canvas with flag sticker
180 x 75 cm

Weekend Australian 1987–1990Detail - SA Government funded Propaganda Advertorials,

SA Government funded Propaganda Advertorials,
Weekend Australian 1987–1990

In addressing a mostly Australian constituency or demographic audience, one painting /collage/ installation dealt with the South African Ambassador Mr David Tothill’s constant flow of pro – Apartheid propaganda, or what he called his fortnightly “advertorials”. He placed these half page advertisements in the Australian newspaper every fortnight. I titled the painting Little White Lies, rehashing a promotional self portrait. I placed his bust portrait which depicted him in a characteristically arrogant stance, puffing away on his Apartheid pipe in the lower portion at the bottom of the canvas with a descending cloud of dull black encaustic (wax with paint) above him. The text at the top reads: A Little White Lie; “an idiom [meaning] a small, usually harmless lie; a fib. Every little white lie you tell is still a lie and it is still meant to mislead people”.* Above this text I attached a decal of Apartheid’s South African flag. This painting became, by extension, a (mini) installation its own right. In front of the painting, similar to a collection box in a church, I placed a bespoke container with a number of David’s advertorials for the viewer to browse through.

*McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Back To Top
Victor Gordon logo white
Social