MR FUNBAGS

A COLLABORATIVE WORK WITH
MATTHEW TOME
1996

Formed part of the exhibition, A Little Respect
Regional Galleries of Australia Tour, 1999 - 2001

Mister Funbags is a critique of - and an indulgence in - the graphic hyperactivity of product packaging language. It was initially conceived as an artists’ book but is also seen as a portfolio suite of single flat sheets (as is the case in this show) and a ‘marketing concept’, which plays upon the strategies of low-end commercial design, point-of-sale packaging and the process of characterising products. The work mimics and manipulates the parallel universes of the art market and the supermarket.

The characters from which the Mister Funbags cycle are derived were originally found as fruity cartoons on Glad sandwich bags for school children and their lunchtime entertainment. The sources were found commercial printing plates, abandoned in an old commercial printing workshop, featuring the original characters which were printed and manipulated as a starting point for the work. The new, improved characters are corrupted versions, each assigned a particular product to portray, from cooking items, to contraceptives, to insecticides. Mister Funbags is escorted by Doctor Hornbags, Miss Beanbags, Sargeant Sweatbags and various other prurient and sweaty characters, who are nonetheless smuttily humorous and a little diseased.

The prints manipulate both the conventions and ‘crafts’ of fine art printmaking and those of commercial process printing. From deliberately printed coffee stains, mis-matched colour registrations and other subverted commercial printing codes, the work contradicts most conventional forms of artists’ books. This is particularly evident as the series is housed in a glorified pizza box. Above all, the work is an exercise in fun, and the tentative steps of establishing a coherent collaborative working relationship.