NEW DIRECTION

🔴🟠🟡🟢🔵🟣⚫️ NEW DIRECTION Ed. No. 191

- AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CITY OF SYDNEY

FOR THOSE PREPARED TO HAVE A GO

AND TAKE A RISK

From: Neville Williams
Subject: SUNSHINE! - A COMMUNITY ART RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION BY NEVILLE WILLIAMS
Date: 10 June 2026 at 11:08:30 am AEST
To: MONICA BARONE (CEO CITY OF SYDNEY)

Hi Monica,

Coming February 2027

🔴

I hope you are well and happy.

It is a while since you kindly invited me to come and have a talk with you. I took the opportunity at that time to make a presentation to you about the possibility of Sydney hosting a World Expo. Can I say I appreciated that most unexpected opportunity greatly.

I remember from that meeting that you had injured your arm and also that we shared the situation of both caring for our elderly Mothers. I trust that your arm is now well and truly healed and I hope that your Mum is still with us and you are enjoying her company. Sadly my dear Mum passed away in December last year.

I am finding that grief is a strange beast that manifests itself in the most unpredictable ways Monica. I do miss her. I was lucky in that Mum’s form of Dementia allowed her to be conscious of me and those close to her right to the last. In that final year we shared many heartfelt conversations that I will always cherish.
I’m sure I don't need to say to you to love your Mum while you have her.
Mothers are very special people.

Anyway, the reason I am writing is that I am focussing presently on preparing a special retrospective art exhibition of my work over the years (38 pieces some quite large) to run from 9 February 2027 leading into the next Mardi Gras before I migrate over the ditch to Wellington NZ and become a “Citizen of the United States of Oceania (USO)”. The Retrospective is titled “SUNSHINE!”.
I am hoping that there will be approximately 150-200 people at the Retrospective opening.
That would be about the same number that attended my first Community Art Show in 2000.

It is a one man show but I have invited Jesse Matheson the CEO of Mardi Gras to utilise the backdrop of my proposed Show to make a statement about where the GLBTQIA+SB community (Gee those letters can go on forever!) might point ourselves. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the gay community's statement included something that might knowingly embrace the wider “straight" world.
In a big picture view you’d like to feel that is the direction our world could be heading? Perhaps though I am a dreamer?

I wanted too to extend an invitation to the City of Sydney to also utilise “SUNSHINE!” to make a statement about our larger collective future as well?
Anyway the invitation is there if the City wanted to take up the baton and run with utilising my exhibition as a platform for a statement forward. Clover is no doubt aware that my correspondences with her over the years have focussed on a “planned vision for our collective future" and there will be major works in the Show that encourage us all to participate in planning for our own future.

The show itself is about many things (See 'NEW DIRECTION') but firstly it is about acknowledging myself (I don’t feel enough people do that in their lives) and secondly thanking people, friends, family, workmates, Sydney and Australia for the wonderful place this has been for me to call home.
And it is true too that Sydney & Australia is a wonderful home for all of us.

“SUNSHINE!" potentially could be big or alternately it might end up being quite intimate and small.
It is all dependant on collectively what people have to put into it.

Monica as I said in my correspondence to Jesse Matheson “If we aim for the stars we might land on the roof." Aiming for the roof we might only reach the window sill.

I’ll be dedicating my Retrospective to my Mother as “A Lady who Lived with Dignity".
My Exhibition will feature the portrait of Mum (following).
I thought I would never get this artwork completed but was amazed to find within myself the energy to finish the painting just after her passing.

Can I also mention that it was really delightful to run into Clover by chance in Stanley Street Darlo. a week or so back.

Take care of YOO* Monica.

Warm fuzzies,

(SIGNATURE)

Neville Williams
8 Palmer Lane
Darlinghurst NSW 2010
Phone: 0434 429 272

Just a question Monica.
Does the City of Sydney have any space I might be able to rent on Oxford Street for a two week period that is large and open glass fronted facing onto the street level preferably near Oxford at Crown Street Darlinghurst? The sort of space I am looking for can be exampled by the vacant premises next door to 'The Riley Hotel'. (Cnr. Riley and Oxford Street). I note that the upstairs area of the street frontage space I am talking about was previously occupied by the Mardi Gras offices.
Whether that space is available in late January 2027 into February 2027 is of course unknowable at this point.

*YOO being the deepest part of you.

Sunshine! is dedicated to the loving memory of:-
URIEL ALICE WILLIAMS - “A Lady who Lived with Dignity” (2026)
Artist: Neville Williams / ©️Arts Law Australia
Size: 91cm W x 122cm H
Mixed media on canvas framed
(ARTWORK HELD IN ARTIST'S ARCHIVE)