Totally wired, 2022, mewe a.k.a Keith Daniel Godfrey

Exhibition opens Saturday 5 March | 6-8pm
UNTiTLED gallery+studio 3/1 Caryota Court, Coconut Grove
Exhibition runs 5 March – 24 March 2022
Gallery open Wed – Fri 11am – 4pm | Saturday 10am – 12pm

My work bubbles out of life in the margins, “I must not doodle”. It reminds me of the hopeless teaching, lack of understanding and the sausage factory called education that had no imagination.

I am angry and full of rage at the fact my kids cannot paint and draw at school because the arts have been boxed in, packaged, restricted.

I am furious that my disabilities are not catered for in the NT legal system. I need time to communicate, and you cut me off. Where is the legal assistance for people with cognitive disabilities?

No more restrictions, paint over newspapers, photos, stick, wood, anything goes, text figures, beautiful, ugly, the good the bad, the ugly, puke it out, scream it out, liberate myself. Posters, print, by any means necessary, lost and found things, strip away all back to the beginning. I will be the master of the work. I will no longer be on the wrong end of bondage and restriction. Cry freedom and punish the bastards. That is some of the feeling I hope to put into my work. Whatever it will morph into. I am not the only one, we need to be listened to. I am not going back; for mewe and for the next generation.

meweonoffstopgoupdownmewe 

Everywhere I go, when I seek professional support, I get told to put it in writing!

To me text is odd, it is strange. More than this it has been a torment since day one. The work meweonoffstopgoupdownmewe is a combination of years and years of frustration trying to get the support I need in life and in education. Incorporating text into my work has allowed me to address issues related to my dyslexia and traumatic brain injury – directly.

meweimustnotdoodlemewe 

This work is about me having to do lines as a punishment for drawing in the margins. I could never see why it was a crime, and especially when it was so detailed and artistic. I did this because I felt good doing it. It was a very natural thing to do. So, my work is about turning the lines punishment into a doodle or an artwork. My son got told off about doodling and drawing in the margins while at school in the Northern Territory. He is now nine and he is bored in his class and like me escapes I guess, to a better place via creating.

Fifty years on in a first world country, still no progressive way of teaching, the same old system. Lack of understanding. If a kid is good at art, then push their art. Better to be good at one thing than nothing at all.

Words by Artist Keith Daniel Godfrey – written by Matthew VanRoden

Thank you to:
Matthew VanRoden Charles Darwin University
Amina McConvell Arts Access Darwin (Darwin Community Arts)
Tarzan McDonald UNTiTLED gallery+studio (Darwin Community Arts)