YOUR AVERAGE DICTIONARY MICHAEL REID GALLERIES, SEPTEMBER 20-OCTOBER 15, 2023

Brightly coloured, brimming with humour and attuned to the way familiar objects become lodged in the cultural memory, Your Average Dictionary comprises 100 small-scale paintings – each paired with witty titles that play on the irreverence and idiosyncrasies of the Australian vernacular. The series shares certain sensibilities with the satirical online newspaper The Betoota Advocate, evoking its sardonic spin on sozzled machismo, suburban torpor and everyday peccadillos.

Where Betoota‘s wry reporting on bad behaviour captures contemporary archetypes with biting specificity, Your Average Dictionary affectionately transforms everyday objects into something similarly totemic – richly drawn, warmly nostalgic and with a sting of recognition that lets us laugh at our own foibles.