Paul Adair - Three-Hole Mountain Inn

Paul Adair creates images that appear full of promise and perfection. Upon closer inspection we see the perfection come unstuck. Each photograph's precise formal composition gives way to the crudeness of his self-made constructions. Adair's works epitomize the disappointment and mediocrity that are the flipside of hope and fantasy, comparing the visual to an experience - like the embellishment of a theme park or photographs on a fast-food menu.

Three-Hole Mountain Inn follows a similar process to Decoy (Stills 2007), where Adair physically constructs all of his sets and props before photographing them. The method of re-creating and re-presenting objects has become integral to developing his practice and continues his interest in the relationship between sculpture and photography.

Making its way down the sterile steps of an empty swimming pool a glowing orange basketball is frozen mid-bounce. A strange scenario. But the stillness of Basketball belies its false truth and the barely perceptible fine lines of hanging wire tell the real story; it is not just suspended in time but in space. This ball's impending impact never happened; if this pool were filled with water its walls would soften and sag, the perfectly aligned tiles would slide out of place, undone by giving-way UHU glue. Like a glimpse behind-the-scenes at a movie shoot, when the magic of cinematic illusion momentarily becomes the banal reality of booms and blue screen, Adair leaves us hanging too, suspended in disbelief.

This exhibition sees Adair experiment with the installation of his large-scale colour photographs, emphasising a space or a place where the objects become something other than themselves.

Paul Adair (b. Australia, 1982) graduated from the Queensland College of Art in 2005. Since 2003 he has exhibited regularly in solo and group exhibitions in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. In 2007 he was awarded an Australia Council studio residency in Los Angeles, which he will undertake in early 2009. This is Paul Adair's first solo exhibition with Stills Gallery.