Artists statement

Daniel Crooks’ virtuosic video-scapes have captivated audiences from across the world.

In High St (after Ruscha), commissioned by Bundoora Homestead Art Centre for the Darebin Art Collection, Crooks has documented his own neighbourhood in High Street, Preston. A daunting task, it manifests in what the artist describes as 64 ‘worlds’ stitched together from the point where High Street intersects Dundas Street all the way up to Tyler Street.

The title pays homage to American artist Edward Ruscha’s (1937-) photographic documentation of the infamous Sunset Boulevard in the city of Los Angeles. Ruscha described the city as ‘the ultimate card-board cut out town’. It is precisely the two-dimensional flatness presented in each page of Ruscha’s concertina books that is clearly referenced in Crooks’ new work.