Spray Booth

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D7000
Lens: 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 24mm · f/8.0 · 1.6s · ISO 100
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

Looking out from inside the spray booth, a wide opening frames the paint shop beyond, its walls and doors buried under layered tags with a blue-faced mural painted across one door in the mid-ground. A red plastic cup, coiled hoses and plastic bags sit on the metal grate floor in the foreground. Sunlight drops through the roof onto the concrete of the main workspace, where a cardboard box leans against the far wall.

Edition

Open edition

Open edition
Printed to order, no fixed quantity. Each print is hand-signed by the photographer.

Limited edition
A fixed number of prints exist. Once sold, the edition closes permanently. Each print is individually numbered and signed.

$100.00 AUD

Colour

Signed, numbered, with COA. Made to order in 5 to 10 business days (unframed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.

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In situ

Spray Booth at Sundell Holden, black-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

Spray Booth at Sundell Holden, raw timber-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

Spray Booth at Sundell Holden, glass print displayed in situ on a wall.

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: Spray Booth
Series: Sundell Holden
Catalogue: SHO-020
Process: Giclée
Captured: 8 November 2015
Camera: NIKON D7000
Lens: 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter: 1.6s s
ISO: 100
Focal length: 24 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 297 × 210 mm
Location: Chatswood, New South Wales, Australia
Authenticity: C2PA verified provenance →
Recognised by: Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards

02 LOCATION

Chatswood, New South Wales, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

Inside the workshop and service centre in Chatswood, a spray booth stands stripped and still. The walls are buried under peeling paint and layers of industrial residue, the kind of build-up that accumulates across years of vehicle finishing work. Dust motes drift through the ambient light, the only movement left in a space built around constant activity. Sundell Motors Pty Ltd held Holden dealer code 610 for Chatswood, NSW, and operated as part of a multi-branch network confirmed by ASIC company records to have included entities at both Chatswood and Pittwater. The site was the mechanical and service arm of the operation, distinct from the earlier Pacific Highway showroom. The company was first registered with ASIC on 5 January 1967 as Sundell Motors Chatswood Pty Ltd, and four Sundell entities were consolidated under a single company name on 3 September 2018. Following closure and prior to demolition, the building stood vacant and attracted layers of street art and graffiti. It was during this interstitial period that Brett Patman photographed the site in 2015. The spray booth recorded here shows walls still carrying the residue of their working life, paint flaking back in broad sheets, surfaces darkened with residue that no clean-up ever reached. General Motors announced the withdrawal of the Holden brand from Australia and New Zealand on 17 February 2020. Holden ceased trading entirely on 31 December 2020, leaving 185 dealers across the country to negotiate exit terms. The ACCC intervened in May 2020 after finding that dealers had been given inadequate time to assess compensation packages. A Senate inquiry reported in March 2021 that the withdrawal had exposed a clear imbalance in bargaining power between Holden and its dealer network. Willoughby City Council approved DA-2017/182 for a five-storey Woolworths development in March 2021. The building was demolished around that time. The Woolworths Chatswood East supermarket opened on 26 October 2022. The spray booth no longer exists. This photograph is what remains of it.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

Inside the Sundell Holden workshop and service centre on Smith Street, Chatswood, a disused spray booth sits silent beneath peeling paint and accumulated industrial residue. Sundell Motors Pty Ltd held Holden dealer code 610 for Chatswood, operating a multi-branch network across Sydney's North Shore. The Smith Street site functioned as the mechanical and service arm of that network, distinct from the Pacific Highway showroom operation. Dust motes drift through ambient light, marking a space that once kept Holdens roadworthy.

Brett Patman

The series

Sundell Holden

23 photographs

Sundell Holden was the car service centre of Sundell Motors, a Holden dealer at Chatswood in Sydney, in the light industrial area of East Chatswood. Its car repair workshops stood on a site of 4,377 square metres that took up almost an entire block, with a fall of about 7.5 metres from one corner to the other. The service centre was vacant from 2010, when a Woolworths company bought the site, and its buildings were demolished by December 2018.

View all in this series →

05 SIZE GUIDE

Print sizes

The anatomy view shows what this finish is as a physical object: paper margin, mat band, frame depth, acrylic profile. The comparison strip shows how each size sits relative to the others at true scale. Click a size or a finish to update both.