This IS Art, Tina

So I've always wanted to travel the world, and I guess I've done more traveling than most by now, but I've always felt a vague emptiness, a sort of hollow feeling, like I was just going through the motions for no particular reason. Well, now I've found it. My tag. My hook. My reason for wanting to bum around the globe just generally looking at weird shit and not necessarily achieving anything much in particular.

I want to do a comprehensive survey of crap art. Especially crap art executed by the owner/s of the sorts of lodging and eating establishments where such art is more often than not found.

Here's a couple of examples. One is fairly run-of-the-mill crap. It's a classic example of the topless island girl designed to faintly titillate middle-aged white tourists and give a vaguely Gaughinesque vibe of tropical raunchiness to the room. Why did I like it? It was in a hotel room in Tete Batu. This is in the hills of Lombok. The place is so resolutely Islamic that you can't buy a beer, and there's just no way you're going to be chilling by the pool with a dusky native maiden clad only in a grass skirt and a sultry smile.

The other two are quite special. Both are from the Butterfly Farm in Batchelor, NT. The mermaid takes up the entire wall of the bathroom -- quite a sensory assault. She pales, though, next to the main wall of the master bedroom. A viking ship stirringly sets sail into a lurid sunset, embarking on a voyage of who-knows-what feats of derring-do and skullduggery. A particularly nice touch (unfortunately offstage in the photo) is the round wall light that becomes the full moon in the mural. Why did the owner of an inland tourist establishment in the wet/dry tropics of northern Australia feel that mermaids and vikings would put the punters in the mood? I don't know, but I love it.