A Collaborative Exhibition Exploring Place, Identity and the Eternal Suburbs

Artists Trevor Bly and Patrick Doherty reunite this August with a new exhibition 5 years in the making at the Moores Building, Fremantle. DIAMOND CHIN SLOP will present a new body of collaborative and individual works with the pair building from their visual investigations into place, taboo and the eternal suburbs.

Bly, known for his award-winning prints, has built a practice grounded in the psychology of place. Drawing from the rituals, aesthetics and postcode of his home suburb Craigie 6025, Bly investigates how locale shapes relationships and personal identity. His work reinterprets suburban signifiers—local icons, pop culture relics and the urban banal—transforming them beyond their fixed geography. Working across print making processes, specifically silkscreen and mixed media painting, Bly adopts techniques reminiscent of propaganda prints and graffiti art traditions. These “unique state” works combine text-driven aesthetics with layered processes refined through long-term collaboration.

Central to Bly’s evolving practice and this show is the notion of “the eternal neighbourhood.” Following a period of personal disconnection within his own community, this new body of work seeks to rebuild the idea of the eternal home from within—examining legacies and ethical accountability that underpin the local identity.

Doherty, a long-time collaborator of over 20 years, brings an expressive, narrative-driven counterpoint. His practice explores the human condition through myths, spiritual undertones and charged relationship politics. His drawn characters—placed insitu of drama and skewed romance navigate universal truths and taboo subject matter, echoing historical mark-making traditions while remaining distinctly contemporary and distinctly Doherty.

This 2026 exhibition re-establishes their presence within the Fremantle arts scene while advancing a renewed, critically engaged investigation into urban sites, memory and the spectacle that is suburban living. Through layered print, expressive figures and shared authorship, Bly and Doherty continue to ask: How can the eternal place continue to exist within a space of shifting values —and what happens when that sense of home is not so homely at all?