2019 – 2021

Hyperreality is a collaborative painting created with Homadokht, developed between 2019 and 2021 and exhibited as part of the Stencil Art Prize exhibitions across Australia. The work takes its title from Jean Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality, defined as “the generation by models of a real without origin or reality,” a framework that deeply resonates with contemporary social media culture and the ways identity, authorship, and freedom are curated and performed online.

The idea for the artwork emerged during a trip to Tbilisi, Georgia. While waiting for lunch, I photographed Homadokht as she scrolled through Instagram, a casual moment that sparked a deeper conversation about mediation, self image, and the collapsing boundary between lived experience and its digital representation. That single image became the conceptual seed for Hyperreality, transforming an everyday gesture into a reflection on how reality is filtered, stylized, and consumed.

Visually, the painting draws from pop art, 8 bit video game graphics, and gilded Renaissance frescoes. This hybrid language both celebrates and satirizes social media aesthetics, combining nostalgia, ornamentation, and digital flatness into a single composition. By merging historical visual authority with contemporary iconography, the work invites viewers to question who authors reality, how freedom is performed, and what remains authentic in an age of infinite replication.

Hyperreality was exhibited in group shows across Australia, including Logan Art Gallery, Dogwood Crossings, Hurstville Museum and Gallery, Glasshouse Port Macquarie, Gympie Regional Gallery, and Southern Buoy Studios, between 2019 and 2021, marking its place within a broader national conversation around urban art, digital culture, and contemporary identity.

Created as Nightwatcher