Jake Atienza

with text by Giles Fielke

5 - 26th May 2017

some thoughts by Jake Atienza : jakeatienza_harvestscene_2017.pdf









A gold chain forever hung around the weathered skin of his neck. His crisp, short-sleeved shirt supported by a collar is brushed down by a sandy mullet. The thick rings on both hands are made of both gold and silver. Always a big smile and an eager to please air of expectancy, right hand out. Daryl has lived his whole life here in the Riverland. It has been six decades now. Up at five. His shorts echoed a tan-line at ankle height (he is yet to pull on his socks). A certain civility is needed for going about mens’ business. It must be officially the work day. A stoic, eye-to-eye tenacity is instantly perceived as a necessary intensity. At just over five feet tall he is practised at downing litres of piss. Pigs, wheat, and the margins. There is lots of land. The river is a mythical region, where the food comes from. Lots of oranges. Dried apricots. The waterways here splay out like desiccated fingers. They reach around islands and run to tributaries that riddle the economic zone. The dusty soil is the colour of blood, flushed red after a century of rape by the settlers. It’s gone salty. Reading the plains I have since always envisioned the plainsmen as an idealisation of Daryl. It’s him.


Hey Daryl are you watching the crows today mate? Dominating.

Sure am go crows

Hows tex on the boundary. Snap from fifty. Good boy

That was out there wasn’t it that’s the type of shit u could hav done