Flash/Crash/Echo/Chamber, 2015
146 Artspace, Hobart
“But my face, he said, thou canst not see; mortal man cannot see me and live to tell of it”
– Exodus, 33:20
“The replication of the invisible does not belong to the domain of painting”
– Vicente Carducho, Dialogos de la pintura. Su defensa, origen, esencia, definicion, modos y diferencias, 1633
This work refers to depictions of visionary experience in the ‘golden age’ of Spanish painting. Such visionary art was and is paradoxical, since a priori, what it depicts can neither be seen nor depicted. Psychedelic floral motifs extend from the canvas on to the walls and floor, while life sized figures spill out into three dimensions, allowing the viewer to virtually enter the scene. The viewer’s eye is shoved from one outrage to the next, interrupted by obscenity, then forced towards other discordant forms or colours, which are in turn interrupted
Compositionally it owes a lot to the Princeton Continuity offense system of basketball - but with a bit of a Gregg Poppovich approach. A lot of coaches run the same schemes every season: Phil Jackson’s famously nuanced triangle offense, Tom Thibodeau’s strong-side box offense, Mike D’Antoni’s seven-seconds-or-less system. Poppovich uses elements of everything. So when you look at this picture of death and fanfare, try to think of the Princeton Continuity, and the nuanced Triangle, and the Box style for Seven seconds or less.
Searched Hard For You And Your Special Ways
Constance ARI, Hobart, 2015
Atom Smasher, 2013
Sawtooth ARI, Launceston
Approximately 27m of sewn canvas. Unfiltered diaristic images made on scrap canvas. Indiscriminately combined.
Iniquity, 2012
Carnegie Gallery, Hobart
Disarticulate, decompose, and recompose the raw materials; begin with the thing, alone, and examine all its components and combinations and move it, turn it about like a wheel, returning around, front and back, like a scroll, and do not let it rest, but when you see its matter strengthened because of the great motion, because of the fear of confusion of your imagination, and the rolling about of your thoughts, and when you let it rest, return to it and ask it until to your hand a word of wisdom comes. Do not abandon it.
Afterwards, go on to the second thing - the second one from the first thing - and ask of it its foundation and it will reveal to you its secret. At this time you will apprehend its matter in the truth of its language. Then join and combine the two things, and study them and ask them everything, ask them again, again, again, again and they will reveal to you a secret wisdom.
Afterwards, combine Elohim, and it will also grant you wisdom. Then combine all four of them and find the miracles of One, which are the miracles of wisdom.
