The Twilight Girls
MAY18th- JUNE 29, 2002
Opening reception- MAY18th@ 8pm
Visiting hours are Saturday from 1-5pm, and all other times by appointment.


Locust Projects is pleased to present The Twilight Girls. Helen Hyatt-Johnston and Jane Polkinghorn are Australian artists who collaborate and conspire. They tote their mission as a kind of self-delusion with fame, celebrity and hilarity-simultaneously ridiculing themselves, popular culture and art. Their methodology has more in common with a girl’s pajama party than academic thesis or formal art process; constantly egging each other on to more ludicrous and inane activities.
At Locust Projects, the Twilight Girls have created Pretty Flamingo: a giant pink flamingo, made from bubblegum, a giant limp form dominates the gallery floor. With its monumental scale, Pretty Flamingo references Australia’s obsession with building enormous things as tourist attractions like the Big MERINO (sheep) at Goulburn south of Sydney, The Giant PRAWN (shrimp) at Ballina in northern New South Wales, the Big GUITAR at Tamworth NSW and even the Big Potato (though most viewers feel it resembles something else) at Robertson. Pretty Flamingo also draws attention to our status as visitors who only know the most obvious symbol of a place such as Miami.
The huge bird, pathetic in its resemblance to a beached leviathan’s corpse, simultaneously brings to mind Disney world, children’s playgrounds, front lawn decoration and candy stores. It is a sensory extravaganza with its sheer size, lurid colors and scent of bubblegum pervading the space. Whetting appetites and making our juices flow. The flamingo’s consumption is immediately stalled by both its scale and inedibility as it oozes pink-ness in the balmy Florida humidity.

Locust projects is supported in part by the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade-County Mayor, The Board of County Commissioners