Window 2

Callum Morton is known for his sculptural and installation-based works inspired by the social and personal stories tethered to built environments. Morton has long been fascinated by iconic architectural sites, but in more recent works he uses painting to explore how these monuments can conceal and overshadow other realities.

Window 2 is from a series of six paintings on canvas made to the same scale as windows in the Sirius Building, a prominent Sydney landmark. This Brutalist-style apartment complex in The Rocks was originally built as social housing for low-income tenants in 1978, but it was controversially sold to private developers in 2019. This building is a subject Morton has previously explored, as in his 2020 series View from a bridge, yet these recent works are more abstract offerings. Showing views looking into and outside of the building, Morton’s paintings become thresholds between the wider world and the lives of the changing residents. The arresting blue in Window 2 alludes to an outlook of Sydney Harbour, now a multi-million-dollar vista due to rapid gentrification, shading the work with feelings of opulence and possibility, but also a distinct melancholy.