This solo exhibition at Factory 49 in Marrickville, Sydney is a continuation of paintings from my "Nothing To Say Here" series, in which arrangements of circles and squares are determined by random artists' quotes.
From the exhibition catalogue:
These works are a continuation of my
series of paintings “Nothing To See Here”. These paintings resulted from an initial work
created in 2015 based on a quote from John Cage - “I have nothing to say and I
am saying it”. For me, painting is arranging
colour and shape on a surface. There is
no subject. With these paintings, ideas of repetition, process and random difference
within uniformity are played with and explored.
The series of paintings are created by
repeated combinations of simple elements. The repetition and use of stencils
leads to inevitable imperfection as the systems break down. These works are
determined by quotes from artists and philosophers concerning the meaning, use
and understanding of art. The arrangements of circles on squares relate
directly to the quote used to title the work, although this is never made
explicit. The viewer may come to realise that the work contains a kind of ’code’
and try to make further sense of it, determining whether the colour
combinations used are random or contain direct relationships to the wording
used.
The title for this exhibition “Between
Boredom and Confusion” is taken from a quote by the art theorist E.H. Gombrich. The longer quote that is used to produce the painting,
proposes that to be of interest aesthetically, an object, image or event must
lie between boredom and confusion. Too
much monotony loses our interest, too much novelty overloads our senses. This seemed to sum up the recent unusual
times within which these latest batch of paintings have been produced.
Kate Mackay, July
2020
CLICK HERE for a VIDEO of the exhibition
top: No Great Artist Ever
Sees Things As They Really Are – Oscar Wilde (2018) bottom: Art Does Not Reproduce
What We See, It Makes Us See – Paul Klee (2018) Oil on canvas on board, 51cm x 51cm each
left: Some Painters
Transform The Sun Into A Yellow Spot Others Transform A Yellow Spot Into The
Sun – Pablo Picasso (2018) right: The Aim Of Art Is To
Represent Not The Outward Appearance Of Things But Their Inward Significance -
Aristotle (2020) Oil on canvas on board, 68cm x 68cm each
Working With Knowns Is
The Space For The Unknown To Occur – Robert Hunter (2020) Oil on canvas on board, 55cm x 55cm
A Picture Is A Secret
About A Secret – Diane Arbus (2019) Oil on canvas on board, 42.5cm x 42.5cm
top left: If You Look At A Thing
Long Enough It Loses All Its Meaning – Andy Warhol (2018) top left: A Man Paints With His
Brains And Not With His Hands - Michelangelo (2018) bottom left: An Artist Discovers
His Genius The Day He Dares Not To Please – Andre Malraux (2018) bottom right: An Artist Is Somebody
Who Makes Things That People Don’t Need – Andy Warhol (2018) Oil on canvas on board, 51cm x 51cm each
left: Art Is Art, Everything
Else Is Everything Else – Ad Reinhardt (2019) centre:The Task Of Art Is To
Bring Chaos Into Order – Theodor Adorno (2019) right: Art Is Everything You
Don’t Have To Do – Brian Eno (2019) Oil on canvas on board, 47cm x 47cm each
Purpose Of Art Is
Mystery – Rene Magritte (2019) Oil on canvas on board, 34cm x 34cm
top: Painting Is By Nature
A Luminous Language – Robert Delaunay (2019) centre: No Artist Tolerates
Reality - Nietzsche (2019) bottom: A Line Is A Dot That
Went For A Walk – Paul Klee (2019) Oil on canvas on board, 42.5cm x 42.5cm each
top: However We Analyse The Difference Between The Regular And The
Irregular, We Must Ultimately Be Able To Account For The Most Basic Fact Of
Aesthetic Experience, The Fact That Delight Lies Somewhere Between Boredom And
Confusion. If Monotony Makes It
Difficult To Attend, A Surfeit Of Novelty Will Overload The System And Cause Us
To Give Up; We Are Not Tempted To Analyse The Crazy Pavement. -E.H.Gombrich (2020)bottom: So Deeply Ingrained Is Our Tendency To Regard Order As The Mark
Of An Ordering Mind That We Instinctively React With Wonder Whenever We
Perceive Regularity In The Natural World.
Sometimes, In Walking Through A Wood, Our Eyes May Be Arrested By Mushrooms
Arranged In A Perfect Circle. Folklore
Calls Them Fairy Rings, Because It Seems Impossible To Imagine That Such
Regularity Has Come About By Accident. - E.H.Gombrich (2020)
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Oil on canvas on board, 136cm x 64cm each |
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| installation view |
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| installation view |
