Death of... Matt Doust (and Perth is a Wonder of the World... almost)

After the death of Archibald prize finalist artist Matt Doust in LA last week* to an epileptic seizure, we are left with a void in the Perth art community. Doust was somewhat of a rockstar icon; a damaged and scruffy birdman with a surfeit of talent and almost totally unknown in Perth outside of other art aficionados. It makes me sad that a guy so young and well liked overseas is not being more venerated in the city that raised him. Venn Gallery is putting on a show in his honour this week and that is great but a bit more recognition while he was alive would've been good. I'm not talking about handshakes with the Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi, or a special show at Linton & Kay, I mean an interview on television, prime time, something that gets Doust and many other beautifully talented artists talked about by regular families. In a separate story, Perth has made it into the "Top 77 Cities" list according to Canadian-Swiss Bernard Weber, ahead of Melbourne, whose humble populace dubbed Perth as "Dullsville" a few years ago. Apparently this list is based on a net survey. Who knows, maybe the site that hosted it wasn't trendy enough for Melburnians.
The list is intended to be trimmed down to an eventual "7 Wonder Cities of the World"; the part that interests me, dear reader, is that next month the list will be trimmed dramatically to 28 cities. These will be cities like NY, London, Paris, Buenos Aires, Montreal, Beijing, etc. Ms Scaffidi, our aforementioned Lord Mayor, has asked Perth people to get in on it and vote "to help with tourism". Surely that isn't the point?
I would've thought the point was to get people in Perth thinking like they live in a wonder of the world. The same people who should be see seeing Doust and his ilk paraded on primetime television. It was the tourists who voted for Perth in the first place! Anyway, to climb on the bandwagon, you can vote here. Lets see if a city with only 1 major public funded art gallery can mix it with the big kids.

*Doust was only 29. What is it with this age that takes so many young talents away in the foreshadow of their best years? See Basquiat, Schiele, et al.