We acknowledge the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of the Country on which the Art Gallery of NSW stands.

Angus Nivison Pernicious

acrylic spray-paint and charcoal on paper

205 x 154.5 cm

Sometimes the things mankind does in the name of progress, religion or the greater good, for itself and the planet beggar belief! It makes me think of a virus, a particularly virulent one.

Watching the news from the Middle East, looking on with dismay as centuries of architecture or culture are reduced to rubble, and lives to dust, I feel that perhaps mankind resembles a virus that is pernicious and all-consuming.

Angus Nivison, 2017