Campbelltown Arts Centre — Attraction in Sydney

Telly Tuita’s obsession with costumes and masks makes his first Australian solo exhibition, Tongpop’s Great Expectations, fun and accessible. There’s a darkness underlying the colourful characters though, stemming from the artist’s life, disrupted. Telly spent the first nine years of his life in Tonga before being abandoned by his biological parents. He was rescued by his grandfather and sent to live in Minto with his father and stepmother. At age 16 his step-mother threw him out, and he moved in with his aunty: the woman he considers to be his mother to this day. These three mothers all make an appearance in his work in Mummy Issues I–III (2020). Women and madness are also the focus of his 2023 series Tevolo (ghost) where UV ink acrylics and digitally printed artworks on fabric are nicely hung by curator Isabelle Morgan.

Returning again and again to the self-portrait, as you walk through the exhibition you can viscerally feel the artist wrestle with who they are, trying on different masks to help determine where exactly they fit in. Living between cultures creates a pining in Telly that you can feel most strongly in Bali Ha’i (2023), a piece commissioned by Campbelltown Arts Centre for this exhibition. Stretching more than two meters, this acrylic work on lavalava (sarong) references the imagined island that can never be reached in the song by the same name from the 1949 musical South Pacific. It’s displayed in a darkened room referred to as Dusk, representing the artist’s adulthood, with a dark piece called The Great Land of Oz (2023). This mixed media piece juxtaposes recycled materials and plastic waste with tourism-inspired stereotypes of Oceania to exemplify our troubled relationship with our Pasifikan neighbours.

There’s a lot of overlap with queer culture and drag in this exhibition that takes over the whole arts centre until 28 March. At the opening night party, Australian documentarian and photographer, William Yang was in attendance. Telly acknowledged his work, which famously includes the documentation of the Sydney LGBTIQ+ community from the 1970s onward, as an inspiration. The exhibition was opened by the chief executive of the Powerhouse Museum, Lisa Havilah, who had spent time in a leadership role at the centre and in an assistant director role at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre overlapping with Telly’s early years studying art at Western Sydney University. Guests from all walks of Telly’s disrupted life were treated to a DJ set from the ‘Gayasian empress of Sydney’, Dyan Tai and pink ‘dusky diva’ cocktails with vodka, coconut water, watermelon, lemon, lime...

Looking forward to my first visit only to be terribly disappointed. I ordered a poached chicken, avocado, spinach & sun dried dried tomato toasted sandwich with chips. First the sandwich- I was worried the sun dried tomato may be too strong for the rest of the ingredients but i shouldn’t have worried. Other than a drop of sun dried tomato oil on the entire sandwich I didn’t taste it anyway. I opened the sandwich to put salt& pepper (twice) to give it flavour which helped somewhat but I didn’t even finish half the sandwich as it was just so tasteless. Now for the chips - the few chips arrived on the same plate as the sandwich but they should’ve been in a small plastic bag with crisps written over it. They were not hot chips as I expected, but crisps and only about 10 of them. Needless to say I didn’t eat those either and my lunch at the Art Centre Cafe cost me $14… I didn’t have a drink, just half a sandwich. I will not be returning and from what I overheard other diners saying, they won’t be either. Very disappointing to...

Re-visited the Campbelltown Arts Centre cafe for a late breakfast with 7 friends. This time, we were seated on the other side of the cafe adjacent to the Japanese garden. Campbelltown has a sister city in Japan. It's worth visiting the cafe and gardens just to learn more. As before, the service was prompt, and we were served by bright, cheerful staff. This always gives a good feeling. Coffee's came out first. I had a large skim flat white (my usual) to judge consistency. Coffee was good but not above average. I've only had 1 coffee in Campbelltown in the last 4 months that I would call above average. (Coffee standard in Aust everywhere is quite high, so its hard to find anything above average). Food was, again, very good. Well conceived and nicely executed. Very pretty plating too. We were all quite full as the servings were tasty and satisfying (see photo's). No adverse comments from anyone. Well worth a visit....