Saturday, September 21, 2013

Damien Minton Gallery - Louise Tuckwell




























The titles of each work read out like segments from a love story, the good the bad and the ugly but ultimately end in that passionate embrace of love making after that volatile fight.

Louise Tuckwell has proven once and again that her work is as passionate, growing from strength to strength, painting killer lines as sharp as a knifes edge, her powerful colour combinations to soften any blunt force trauma and broadcasting it to the world that her paintings and tapestries are to die for.

‘I want it’ is what I overheard quite a few people were saying at the opening and ‘I want it bad’ some said and I hope those made a concerted effort with a deposit.

‘Release Me’ acrylic on birch wall relief 300x200x600mm is a sexy slice of licorice allsorts, if I could eat it then there would be a bite taken out of it. ‘Encode + Transmit’ acrylic on two birch panels, 530x630mm is not going to reveal it’s secrets after one kiss but maybe after some long lingering looks.

‘Informal Relation’ acrylic on five birch panels, 225x1020mm will however entice you onto that gorgeous soft green sofa and whisper sweet nothings in your ear.

These new works will most likely leave a lasting impression on my sensitive persuasion and hopefully keep that flame burning bright.

Fleur MacDonald
10th September - 21st September 2013
www.damienmintongallery.com.au

Friday, September 20, 2013

Dominik Mersch Gallery - Isidro Blasco



















Hailing from Spain and residing in New York, Isidro Blasco has blessed us here in Sydney with a gob smacking delight of a show at Dominik Mersch Gallery in the Danks Street Waterloo complex in Sydney. On close inspection the work was intense with an attention to detail to rival anyone with obsessive intent.

Photograph’s taken, laminated, folded to replicate floor boards, architraves and door ways of each interior/exterior. The backing supports are reminicent of my time in the 80’s working backstage for a number of Theatre companies in Brisbane as there is enough wood and foam board to build an actual life size stage set.

‘Zero Gravity House’ C-Print on museum board, wood and hardware, 48x66x18 cm has chairs floating or most likely suspended from the ceiling, with each chair leg made into relief. My eyes were drawn to the Biedermeier and then the tall boy and continued on to check out every nook and cranny. Chairs are the focal point in this piece, 24 of them either hanging from the ceiling, at the forefront or tucked into a corner and everything else became irrelevant.

‘Penelope’s House’ C-Print on museum board, wood and hardware 20x56x9 cm being an Architecturally designed house allows for a perfect fold out of the width of the interior, from window to window and stairs in the middle, fireplace to the grand piano. Penelope’s house is simplistic in design but the most effective I found.

‘Anita’s Garage’ C-Print on museum board, wood and hardware 20x55x9 cm was almost identical as Penelope’s house as it’s from one side to the other, representing the extent of the working artist with canvas’s and drawings hung. The floor is sparse as room is needed for much pacing from one end to the other and standing in front of the works for final completion.

‘House with Basement’ C-Print on museum board, wood and hardware 20x50x10 cm was one to look at, at first glance you miss it but if you angled your head you’d see him looking back at you.

‘East FM’ C-Print on museum board, wood and hardware 25x42x11 cm a non domestic interior but a place of work and somewhere I’ve visited to talk about Art. It’s all about the angles, capturing every centimeter of the work space and transforming it and I would have to take a wild guess at how many photograph’s Blasco would take in each interior let alone the entire show. There was a great little video on how Blasco put this show together on the Galleries website which revealed the start to finish.

 ‘The Doll House’ C-Print on museum board, wood and hardware 30x36x11 cm, it’s not just the photo’s but the supports could well be the star of the show, with a 2D work you may just lose the want to look at the intensity of detail from each folded photograph, following each shelf to find something new about it’s inhabitants lifestyle. The occupant Christine Myerscough was blown away with the fact that her shelves became alive more so than when she is there in person. That fact accounts for something as these works were so theatrical that they demanded an audience and you can feel their prescence as soon as you walked into the Gallery.

A wonderful way to showcase a room or in this case a hallway with, ‘The Consul’ C-Print on museum board, wood and hardware 24x36x9 cm, revealing an intimate collection of paintings, photograph’s and objects. I kept coming back to this piece as I was quite partial to it, it’s created to reveal a distant room, just one long view to a point and I’m left wondering what was in that end room.

Blasco’s interiors offer a moving narrative to the ongoings of domestic life, just not all were the interior of a home or office but also a vehicle as in ‘The Godess II’ C-Print on museum board, wood and hardware 12x24x8 cm. The Citroen DS-9 was and always will be the perfect car and how wonderful to represent it in this way, a salute to it’s designer. Folded out into a way to showcase it’s bedroom like interior in three sections showing off passenger and driver’s seat, it’s superb comfort enhanced by it’s retro colour scheme.

‘Book Shelf’ C-Print on museum board, wood and hardware 38x32x10 was one of my favourite’s as I found it strangely comforting that someone else’s many books and magazines have a home when mine sit waiting on the studio floor. The extention of the shelves reveal the supports and gives it an added dimension. It’s bulging at the seams but more can be added I’m sure.

The larger work ‘Gale Edwards’ C-Print on museum board, wood and hardware 80x100x5 cm was an entire house walking in from the front door and almost to the back door, a life time in theatre unfolded infront of us. Four levels of display revealing the inner workings of this house which comes across as being larger than life, each room was filled to the maxium and stylized to within an inch of it’s life.

Each work seemed to leap off the wall as Blasco has taken each location to another level, his earlier work was more exteriors and were much larger and more compacted. His use of colour enhancement within the printing process seemed to give a more surreal affect which changed our perception.

‘QVB’ C-Print on museum board, wood and hardware, 80x125x21cm gave us a birds eye view perched in the right place to show a panaramic of the interior of this grand old lady, helping us to notice elements that we’ve never seen before and making us to consider going back to discover for ourselves.

That’s what it is all about, rediscovering a new way to see beyond what we already see, redefining our perception of how we all live, some maybe more dramatic than others but it’s our way to create a comfortable existence.

Although to define that existence would have been better to showcase the work only on three walls instead of the entire gallery, this exhibition needed a lot of space around it, hanging it on every available wall space just made it fall into a schasm of confusion and to retain the integrity of each work would have produced a far more powerful response on arrival.

Blasco is one to look out for as what’s his next fold going to be.

Fleur MacDonald
10th August - 7th September 2013
www.dominikmerschgallery.com

Saturday, September 14, 2013

At The Vanishing Point - Hexamatic - Johannes Muljana & Pamela Lee Brenner
























Hexamatic – A confoundedly great show, wowed from the very moment of walking into At The Vanishing Point. When it comes to interactive video work then you’ve got me, you have my full attention.

‘Hashes to Ashes’ data visualisation software, computer, projection, audio, 2013 is the direct response to when Linkedin suffered at the hands of hackers and over one million passwords were hacked. This work is brilliant, the use of overlaying colours with passwords decrypted from hashes is probably technically simple but for a tech simpleton like myself it’s so effective, I remember reading about this break in when it happened and with the help of Muljana and Brenner to remind us to how and what our passwords should be or not.

We all make the same mistake of repeat use of our passwords, something we all need to stop doing.
 After seeing this work I made the effort and changed all my passwords.

‘Traces’ software, video, projection, this work is the finished product from a residency at Fraser Studios in 2011, and is also brilliant with etched figures superimposed over a warehouse interior background, dancing across the screen.

The moment when you realize that there is something more than a room full of portable radios and just out of sheer luck as you are walking around the room and notice something changes in the process. ‘Oh I like that’ and then I get excited. Listening intently, but realizing I can’t for the life of me understand a word, each radio projected spoken sound, ‘Interference’ 2012 sound transmission, video projection is a wonderful intelligent put together piece and one I would have liked to have taken home. Radio transmissions of speeches made by world leaders and a chance to catch yourself projected onto the wall just for a fraction of time.

Johannes Muljana and Pamela Lee Brenner are two equally passionate Artist’s, their work is diverse, they don’t just make pretty pictures projected onto walls they make works with meaning and substance, stories unfold, giving us a wake up call to change the way we protect our privacy. I loved the subtle reference when I realized what most of these work were actually about as none of these works were in your face, more like quiet achievers which left a lasting impression.

So it was a pity that no one from ATVP bothered to turn up on the last day to make access available for the artist’s and to allow visitors to view and experience this show. Not sure what the hell happened there but I’m very thankful I was one of the lucky ones to see it.

Fleur MacDonald

15th August - 1st September
www.a9project.net