IN a coup for M16 Artspace, entertainer-artist Paul McDermott, calling himself “Young Master Paul,” will show his work time to a Canberra audience for the first in a free exhibition, “The Dark Garden.”

Visitors will enter a ‘secret world,’ usually confined to McDermott’s under-house studio in Sydney, and are to be engulfed by installation and soundscapes.

The idea is to transform M16 Artspace Galleries  01 and 02 into immersive spaces and showcase McDermott’s work across a range of media including painting, sound, and animation.

“The Dark Garden” is described as a nouveau-colonial vision of a post-apocalyptic future, “a bleak black Eden, ravaged Mega-fauna battle and consume other absurd hybridised creatures.

Microscopic creatures, both  viral and amoebic, “float infiltrate, corrupt.”

There may be a curious parallel with the current Canberra Contemporary  Art Space’s exhibition, “Science fiction” in this close up look at creature, as we learn “a sole observer” (possibly McDermott himself) documents with faux-scientific and biological zeal the obsidian darkness, the deadly flora and the oil-based life-forms.

How many readers know that  Doug Anthony Allstars member Paul McDermott, now a comedian, actor, writer, director, singer and television host, originally trained as an artist at the Canberra School of Art?

Now, as they say in showbiz, he’ll will return to where it all began.

“The Dark Garden” at M16 Artspace, 12.00 – 5.00pm, Wednesday – Sunday  September 12-29. Thursday, September  12 – 6pm. All welcome.