"In the main gallery was Guidance by Wellington-based artist Sarah Jane Parton, offering a kind of naive utopian manifesto for the future. On a wall of monitors plays a video of Olympics/Band Aid/Oprah/Eurovision aspirations. Clad in a leotard, in a performance reminiscent of Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You” video and fetishised American Idol auditions, Parton earnestly, but futilely, throws her body through dance moves to the slightly distorted strains of Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City”, which Parton sings (of course) in Esperanto. This is a paean to flawed, doomed but undaunted hope: Wagner as high-school musical."
Guidance (2008)
Other works by Sarah Jane Parton
Sarah Jane Parton
Madison's Lament (2006)
Kneeling and swaying to the music, the artist appears dressed as a mermaid in a clam-shell paddling pool.
Sarah Jane Parton
Slowdance '92 (2004)
The artist, crutches by her side, dances partner-less amongst the otherwise empty seats in a corner of a school disco.
