As someone said to me last year, ‘if I can’t hang my car keys on it, why would I buy it?’
OF BIRDS, SHARKS AND A SLIPPERY DIP
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Review
RITUAL, RELEVANCE AND REVELATION
Part of any gallery ritual is the explanation provided. The necessity to explain in objective terms is all-pervasive and often becomes the be-all and end-all of looking at a work of art.
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PORTRAITURE
Is there a future for the painted portrait? The annual rush to present a work for selection to the NSW Archibald committee never seems to diminish and nor does the disappointment in being passed over yet again. The archies aren’t the only portrait prize either. But just who gets their portrait painted anyway these days when the camera phone can capture every waking moment in perpetuity?
THE RELEVANCE OF ‘ABSTRACT’ IN THE 21st CENTURY – JUST SEMANTICS?
Not that long ago I could define Abstract art as work without a formal, recognisable subject and essentially, centripetal.
THE IMPROBABLE MOMENT
A painting such as this is just such a moment. The figure is caught in motion, in transition, while the other areas are motionless but enlivened with texture. Words appear as seeming dialogue – the visualisation of a soundtrack. In film recording, the sound and picture are treated separately and only brought together in the editing. Again, this is artificial. We experience sound and picture simultaneously however, while the picture can be isolated to a static image or still, words are traditionally spoken at three words per second meaning that the words in the picture cannot be literally experienced at the same time as the figurative and textural elements in the painting. This contradiction creates not so much confusion as layers of improbability.
THE SELF-CENTERED, THE COLLECTIVE AND THE ATEMPORAL
While the cult of the heroic individual artist will seemingly continue forever, collaboration around shared philosophies, shared knowledge and that a work of art is not necessarily anchored to a specific individual, time or place may well be the most effective response to the time in which we find ourselves – past, present and future as one.