Synpac Syntax

In the early 1980's an Australian bank rebranded itself to become known as Westpac. It is now a familiar name but at the time the pac component struck me as being synthetically corporate and faintly sinister. It was also the start of the mobile billboard in this country with services offering the printing of company logos on the increasingly popular baseball cap. Again this is now a commonplace but with the currency of punk and residual hippy values, this sort of corporate insinuation into public life was sometimes regarded with suspicion.

The woodcut features a desolate plaza replete with a banal piece of sculpture, an environment favoured by town planners in the 1960's and 70's. On the wings, much like a modern day putti, are a pair of baseball capped Big Brothers.