Peter Drew's Adelaide street posters on Australian national identity theme go to the wall by the thousands
Peter Drew's 2019 memoir, Poster Boy (centre) discussed his street art and his family. Left: Drew's Dorothy Sym Choon circa 1920,screen print, giclée print and acrylic paint on sewn flag, on board, for his Flags1 exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Right: His common street poster themes.
Peter Drew became Adelaide’s most-seen artist with works on alley walls, on hoardings and under bridges. Drew’s simple strong poster images asked passersby big questions about national identity with statements such as “Real Australians say welcome” or the face of Monga Khan, an Indian hawker who immigrated to Victoria in 1895, above a solitary word: “AUSSIE”.
What started as a few posters in Adelaide grew to between 3,000 and 4,000 as it became a national, and then international, project. Drew would screen print his art, fly to a new city, check into a youth hostel, cook up a pot of glue and then hit the streets with a broom. He wore a high-visibility vest that, conversely, meant he was not noticed, although he had a few confrontations with those who disagreed with his messages.
Born in 1983 in Adelaide, Drew gained a masters degree from the Glasgow School of Art and his works also were exhibited at the National Gallery of Australia and the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Drew’s September 2020 exhibition FLAGS 1 at the Art Gallery of South Australia returned his theme. of Australian identity. Each work started with an Australian flag degraded and blended with photographs from the national archives. These black-and-white portraits were originally taken as part of applications to be exempted from the dictation tests that were an instrument of the 1901 Immigration Act – also known as the White Australia Policy.
Cameleers, hawkers and other traders – including the family of Gladys Sym Choon who came to Adelaide – were granted exemptions because their work was essential to Australia’s growing economy. Drew said the image and the flag were meant to be in conflict with each other. He said he wasn’t trying to make a political statement with the 11 works. He didn’t believe it’s the role of art to tell people what to think; it should simply reveal what’s going on: “The problem with Australian national identity, and with all national identity, is that there is the implicit ethnic bias within the core of the nation state.”
In his 2019 memoir, Poster Boy, Drew navigated conflicting perspectives on Australia’s streets and within his own family as he explored what it meant to be a political artist, an Australian, and a man.
