Cirrus@Austlit

'The wild and beautiful coastal Great Ocean Road and the suburban family home interior come together in a story about family and the pain of a lost friendship. When Phillips's family take a sudden three-day holiday at Wye River without him, he finds himself with an unfamiliar and unexplored freedom. Time away from children disturbs the order of his universe. Time and identity are distorted by solitude. Men are prone to isolation when they crave solitude. In isolation, Phillip reveals his desperate need to connect. In a world where 'masculinity' is prefaced by the word 'toxic' Phillip's weekend alone surprises in its pre-occupations. So, Phillip goes down a path he hadn't expected. He wants to solve a mystery about a friendship with a boy named Johnson, cares for his mother, prepares food for the time when his daughters return, misses his wife, Beatrice.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

This work revolves around presenting a famous city through photographs (Oppen) and poetry (Lyssiotis) while avoiding clichés. Oppen does this by photographing without looking into the viewfinder in order to free her photography from any subconscious direction. Lyssiotis’ poetry adds a further psychological dimension to the work.

'I wanted to photograph a famous city but avoid the cliché shots. I wanted to photograph that famous city from being in the city. The best way to do this was to mark out an itinerary and then as I walked take photographs without looking through the view finder so the tourist-mind couldn't edit or compose—it was a way of overriding those clichés! The text by Peter Lyssiotis adds another dimension—the psychological' (Monica Oppen, Bibliotheca Librorum apud Artificem catalogue).

Seven Rooms is a narrative brought back from the interior. The travels document surreal spaces and deep transformations which hit at the possibilities of change on a personal and a social level.

'Peter Lyssiotis (photomontage) and Oppen (poetry) combine photomontage with poetry to create a narrative/documentation of "surreal spaces and deep transformations." Both artists hint through their works that there are possibilities for personal and social changes within these profound and complex spaces and transformations' (Monica Oppen, Bibliotheca Librorum apud Artificem catalogue).