52 Shopping lists found while working at a supermarket
2023

Created for the exhibition Melbourne Now, presented at the National Gallery of Victoria from March 24 to August 20, 2023. Each sculpture is hand sculpted from earthenware clay and kiln fired.

I was 15 when I first got a part time job as a supermarket cleaner and trolley pusher, and I've worked there on and off for more than half my life. Part of the job was getting rid of any rubbish left behind in the trolleys, it’s usually just receipts and banana peels, but often more interestingly, it’s abandoned shopping lists. Rather than throw away the shopping lists I would instead read them and began to collect them. I now have a collection of over 7,000 found shopping lists.

Most shopping lists are written quickly, unlike ceramics which is a very slow medium, and it’s through this act of slowly recreating the objects that I allow myself the time and space to reflect on them. The shopping lists read like poetry, and are often as revealing as portraiture. Despite their anonymity they’re extremely intimate, providing a unique insight into the people we pass in the aisles. 

This series was aquired by the National Gallery of Victoria and now has found a permanent home in the NGV collection.