Sue Dodd, Hello Wendy (Alt/Rock), 2013, Single Channel HD Video with Stereo Sound, 6 minutes 2 seconds

In a never before seen series of video works, Melbourne based artist Sue Dodd will create a flamboyant POP diva – Wendy Airhole.

For the video works, Dodd has written original songs, full of poignant and witty lyrics that encapsulate the celebrity focused nature of popular culture today. Catchy and at times cliché, Dodd’s songs cover all genres of pop music including country, surf, sixties and rap. Dodd’s fictional pop star, the dramatic Wendy Airhole, will be recorded performing these songs, which will be presented across multiple video works. In the films, the over-the-top and drag queen-like Wendy questions the role of the artist and the fan, what it means to follow a stylistic cliché and the notion of living the dream.

Intended as a tribute, Wendy Airhole’s name is derived from the derogatory nickname given to Andy Warhol, when sauntering through to the back bar of Max’s Kansas City, partying and posing. Dodd has appropriated this nickname for her fictional pop star who certainly displays that she knows how to party and to pose.

Throughout her long career, Dodd has developed an artistic practice that incorporates performance, video and installation, and responds to the contemporary cultural landscape of globalisation, homogeneity and desire. Dodd looks at the playful and expressive potentials of pop, mass media and celebrity culture through translation, over-dubbing and performance, challenging audience relationships to the work of art and demonstrating possibilities for hybrid modes of production.