In 2005, Michael Parekowhai held an exhibition at Roslyn Oxley9 in Sydney. The large gallery space was populated with fiberglass figures consisting of security guards, ballerinas and small grey men. This surreal exhibition carried the title Rainbow Servant Dreaming, the title of the lot we have on offer. For many Australians the term ‘dreaming’ is one with which they are intimately familiar. It is an Aboriginal term used to explain the journey and the actions of ancestors who created the natural world, and dreaming stories are repeated from generation to generation maintaining a link between the past and the present. For Parekowhai, the title is not so much a retelling as a repeating. Three very different figurative sculptures were repeated throughout the space. They all shared the highly glossed finish of automotive paint on fibreglass, which is slick and impervious to the elements. The imposing, unreceptive Kapa Haka security guard is based on the artist’s brother, Paratene. Flat–footed and burly, he stands arms crossed in defiance, holding us at bay and denying us entrance. The Song of the Frog, in contrast, is an elegant ballerina, lying supine and attenuated on the floor, eyes peacefully closed, and blissfully unaware of the viewer. The little grey men also imposing and aloof, though on a much smaller scale, are cold and upright. En masse across the wall, facing in and facing out, they mimic the busy city men based on the figures depicted in René Magritte’s famous surrealist masterpiece Golconda. Nameless, expressionless, cloned men who ‘work in the city’ fall from the sky like rain. Some face out, striding forward drone-like into the room, while the others, such as this example, turn their back and abut the wall, as though refusing to acknowledge their surroundings or environment. They wear the uniform of city men: bowler hat and long overcoat; they carry their accoutrements: umbrella and briefcase. In Parekowhai’s version, the addition of gloss grey paint further highlights their sameness, and emphasises their very anonymity, their ‘greyness’. Parekowhai has effectively extended the surrealist imagery of the Belgian master, and made it real.Emma Fox