Emmanuel Angelicas was born in Sydney in 1963. He has grown up in Marrickville – a section of inner Sydney that is demographically Southern European/Migrant/working class – a tough neighbourhood. This is very much his version of Marrickville, a version we as outsiders would not normally be able to see. MarrickviIle communicates with itself and its own.
We are however lucky that when Angelicas shows us Marrickville it is being shown by one of the few young Australian photographers with creative authority on the street. He enforces a style through his sense of composition, of centering graphic impact and by a particular detachment from his surroundings which corresponds more to his culture than his personality.
The cinematic quality of his street heroes are a strong signature: the Conanesque handsome brutality of his swordmaster; the primal scream eyes behind the helmet of his front room motor car racer; and the man in a suit with a wild lion in a mini jungle back yard.
This cinemaland Marrickville is an X rated script at times. Here Angelicas rigorously explores the borders of self sex and boredom through cheap, purchased pornography in its inflated plastic, filmed and read incarnations.
In the suburb of Marrickville, the issues are clear, – Sex, Religion and Violence. Angelicas has given us a 60th of a second entity of all these situations. Here there is no psychotherapeutic symbolism, no fake blood or make-up, these are real people, and this is a real place.
Marrickville is in the city of Sydney within the Commonwealth of Australia.
MAX PAM 1988