“….Deploying the motif of sparring kangaroos, The Mating Rites works critique the cultural dominance of masculinity in our national imagery, and for me symbolize the many anxieties lurking within our nation's self-image, seemingly constantly at war with itself.

The kangaroo motif is a kind of allegory for dualism within Australian culture. The city/the bush, Indigenous/Non-indigenous, left wing/right wing, flood and fire, love/abuse of our environment and also perhaps the illusion of us as a classless society. In this instance, the motif is employed as an embodiment of the visceral nature of the Australian experience, and at the same time, as a symbol of a masculinity in conflict with itself….”

-Tim Vagg 2016 The Mating Rites exhibition

Emblem 2014

  …’These paintings debunk the predominately male Anglo-Celtic hero images of the heavily mythologised bronzed Anzac, the bushman, the surfer, the larrikin and bushranger that have been manufactured and endlessly recycled by politicians and the media. This work also subverts these myths by inserting an alternative iconography into the framework of national symbology…’

Postcards from the Holy Land 2013

“….Here, Vagg re-imagines these kitsch Australian icons on canvas, shifting postcard aesthetics to the realm of fine art. He portrays each monument as a patron saint to the national psyche and by extension, our tradition of egalitarianism and humour. He reinforces the colourful appeal of vintage Australiana and spikes it full of references……Postcards from the Holy Land invites us to reflect on who and what we idolise in Australia. The show’s timing could not be more perfect”……

-Anna Sutton Broadsheet magazine 09 September 2013 Postcards from the Holy Land exhibition

The Boxer Rebellion 2012

…’The title The Boxer Rebellion refers to the Chinese historical event only in a metaphoric sense. It reflects our xenophobic defence of Australia's colonial mythologies. The dual titles, both in French and Australian slang, also speak of a paradox in our simultaneous reverence and also rejection of 'the foreign' within our culture…’'

…”The Boxer is a great metaphor for the Australian experience….”

-Sally Bennett The Melbourne Age June 2011

The Boxer Paintings 2011

“….Tim Vagg's painstaking mixed-media paintings possess both a playful, illustrative exterior and a vast historical weight. Where his earlier work retraced local historical figures and narratives, the story of notorious Collingwood "businessman" John Wren, for one, The Boxer Paintings assume a more allegorical, motif-laden guise. A clear thread is the problematic notion of Australian identity. His heavily tattooed, steely gazed convicts, boxers, boxing kangaroos and blindfolded toughs describe a national psyche at war with itself. The triptych Les Boxeurs Tente is a particularly poignant work.

It shows a stable of young Anglo and indigenous boxers facing towards us, fists raised in fighting stance. While outwardly rugged, these striking images whisper about the vulnerability and trepidation of youth.

The boxers, like the land they stand on, are fighting for a construct, an identity, that has yet to define itself…”

-Dan Rule 2011 The Boxer Paintings The Melbourne Age

John West is Dead 2010