Wednesday, August 19, 2020

BETWEEN BOREDOM AND CONFUSION - Factory 49, 49 Shepherd St, Marrickville - 20 August to 29 August, 2020

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 leftA 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 rightAn 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)

Oil on canvas on board, 136cm x 64cm each


installation view


installation view























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