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As a girl, Sherrie Knipe was introduced to the niceties of the brush and comb set, a group of hairdressing implements with ornamental backs (usually reproductions of paintings). At the time these were considered a suitable gift for young ladies. She didn't like them and didn't use them. This subliminal gender-conditioning by well meaning friends and relatives was not completely wasted on her, however, because the works in her recent exhibition, Scruburbia, at Craft Queensland 's CQgallery are based on that idea of superimposing another layer of meaning upon a utilitarian object.
lt seemed to Knipe that there was something rather dishonest about those pretty, chocolate box lid kind of illustrations designed to fill a young girl's head with images of the genteel refinement possible if she did her hundred strokes with the brush night and morning. Brushes generally mean something rather different in a woman's life. They mean scrubbing. The monumentally enlarged wooden brushes in Scruburbia are not for hair, but for scrubbing pots, pans, dishes and floors, and carved on the back in low relief are details of a typical Queensland suburban house where this is likely to take place.
Also on display were a small intaglio print of brushes, and a much larger print on plywood of the images carved on the backs of the brushes, fitting loosely together so the details combine to show the full picture of the house. The details printed on plywood look as though they must have got where they are as a result of the backs of the brushes being inked and used as printing blocks. The images are not reversed however, as they would be if this had been done