The exhibition is divided into three separate sections. A series of panels reflecting interior domestic settings, a series of exterior housefronts and a series of abstract panels.

I wonder what made him chose to paint suburbia, a place where he'd almost certainly be known as 'Arkers', and the closest he'd get to creating would be the art of barbequing his steak. To know that this is how someone else viewed suburbia is amazing - I certainly wish my adolescence growing up in Stafford Heights was experienced wearing Arkley glasses. Arkley had a serious belief in his subject matter and I feel that he treated the suburbs, not with contempt, as a first timer might believe as they view house after house painted in floral brocade and fluro, but with affection, as he took everyday objects and heightened their significance, so that we could learn to appreciate each object as art in itself. Arkley used an airbrush, which gave his paintings a clean, mass-produced look, which perhaps was also his comment on the Australian suburban development. The optical trick given by the airbrush is to cause the outlines of objects to be out of focus, making the picture feel like a hallucination. The end result is that Arkley's paintings look strangely familiar, the emphasis being on 'strange.'

THEATRICAL FACADE1996

FABRICATED ROOMS 1997-1999

Arkley's use of colour is sublime - lime, hotpink, valencia orange, aquamarine. His palette is a knockout and you can literally spin yourself by staring up close at his paintings. I'm not so sure about the abstract panels that were exhibited. Having no knowledge of abstract appreciation, other than to like or dislike what's happening on the canvas, I can't say that I really got much out of them. However, I was so thrilled with the other two sections that I spent another half hour staring at them instead. I am so glad to have witnessed a snippet of how Howard Arkley experienced the world. Go see his exhibition and lift your glass of pink bubbly in a toast to good old Australian suburbia! - Neriman Kemal