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Brook Andrew is a Melbourne-based artist who works with inflatable PVC, neon, installation, photo-media, mixed-media, performance and video. Andrew challenges cultural and historical perception, using text and image to comment on local and global issues regarding race, consumerism and history.

His work with archival material has created debate and new thought surrounding contemporary philosophies regarding memory, its conceptual and visual potency linking local with international histories. By co-opting the tools of advertising, the media, museums and Wiradjuri language and culture, Brook Andrew’s art challenges the limitations imposed by power structures, historical amnesia, stereotyping and complicity.

Brook Andrew designs full-sized PVC inflatable ‘bouncy’ castles that offer fun and laughs and an immersive experience, but as a self-titled war memorial it suggests solemnity and reflection. A monumental black figure stands proud atop the Wiradjuri patterns, while skulls dangle like Halloween toys within the PVC  ‘windows’ of the castle turrets.

Andrew offers a contemporary war memorial for the Indigenous people who died during the European settlement. His work may also suggest the ‘bounce’ of debate and the verbal jousting of the ‘history wars’.