Shocking, beautiful, sexy, weird, amusing and revealing are among the adjectives that might be used to describe BLAZE2006, an exhibition of recent work by seven of Canberra’s hottest emerging artists.
The one word that holds them all together, however, is excellence. This diverse group with backgrounds in painting, sculpture, photography and installation has spent the year pushing the boundaries of contemporary art as part of the 2006 CCAS Residency Program. Originally selected from the 2005 graduates of the ANU School of Art, the residents have been working in the Gorman House studios while also assisting CCAS staff with the installation of exhibitions and general gallery duties as part of a broader program of professional development.
This is an exhibition that celebrates the formidable talent and enthusiasm of artists whose will to experiment has already had a considerable impact in the ACT and beyond.
Leah Bullen
Leah Bullen’s paintings investigate how mediated imagery in electronic and print media might relate to the practice of contemporary painting, in particular her painting. Her work re-presents the ubiquitous images we see in news, gossip magazines, advertising, reproduced art works and on the internet. Each piece can be viewed as a three-way intersection of mediated image, painted picture and the artist’s observations. By removing details from the original image Bullen enters into an editing process that will ultimately make the work characteristically her own. The addition of new elements from the traditional painting palette renders a murky dream world in which bodies radiate a sense of warmth and mystery, effectively heightening the sensory over the documentary nature of the original photograph. Bullen’s interest in the ways that women have been represented in the history of painting drives the production of work that is often erotic, extremely seductive but never exploitative. While referencing old masters such as Velasquez, Degas and Ingres, Bullen’s distinctive style inspires a refreshingly new contemporary romance with paint and the ways it can represent the body.
Karena Keys
Karena Keys’ paintings are inspired by a passion for paint and an interest in unraveling the illusory aspect of the painted canvas. She uses paint, not as a means of representation, or to create a space of illusion, but rather to reveal its unique material characteristics. For Keys, paint becomes a sculptural form; any dip, slump, tear or stretch exists in the three dimensional space of the viewer instead of the limiting space of the picture plane.
In the beginning each work could be described as “gestural”. Keys enjoys the process of throwing paint around while also being acutely aware of the formal beginnings of ‘pure painting.’ The paint is completely removed from brush and canvas and treated as a malleable material that is manipulated directly through the movements of her hands. In this way the paint connects more closely with human form. It is her gesture, her emotion and her body that gives the painting a new life as a tangible and sensual object in space.
Marina Neilson
Marina Neilson is attracted to the materials she collects by the innate humanness she feels is contained within them. There is a sense that there is something wonderful about each one and yet, they also hold a slight disappointment.
For Neilson, materials are more than mere media and she describes the moment of initial contact in terms of a delightful process of familiarisation and discovery. “I like to handle the materials, press them, poke things through them, pull them apart and reconnect them”she says. All the while she imagines what narratives can be generated and what feelings might be evoked. Or perhaps, where the liveliness, the humour and the pathos exist. Neilson creates a comprehensive and intimate experience of the object and then takes the audience through that experience to create something that is as much philosophical as it is physical.
A die hard humanist, Neilson’s chosen objects anchor the work,giving it a place in the hierarchy of “things” while constructing context and a sense of familiarity.
The viewer’s imagination or a characteristic individual engagement lies at the heart of her works. They are not only about the object, rather, they focus on matters of existence or human life; a little pathetic perhaps, but wholly valuable nonetheless.
Meg Roberts
Meg Robert’s work is concerned with physicality of the human figure as a mortal entity as well as an expressive vehicle. She has always been interested in the notion of physical self-awareness and understandings of the human body as a vulnerable, biological entity. Her works study the manipulation of the painted figure using awkward or expressive poses that emphasise the mechanics and tactility of the body. In 2005 Roberts received the Embassy of Spain Australian Young Artist’s Scholarship and she traveled to Spain to research 17th century devotional painting and sculpture. Drawn to the blood-filled, material representation of the human figure as a means to capture pathos and express spiritual intensity, her work transports the audience beyond earthly interpretation into a discomforting yet compelling metaphysical realm.
Simon Scheuerle
‘Simon Scheuerle is more a way of life than an artist.’
Kurt Cobain, New York, 1993
Simon Scheuerle’s work is often in poor taste, disturbing, frightening and sometimes genuinely shocking. On the surface at least, it would appear to be the product of an extremely twisted imagination and yet, it is nearly always humorous. Bringing together diverse elements of popular cultural phenomena Scheuerle sets up possible situations that most of us could not imagine, even in our darkest moments. What would happen, for instance, if the terrifying child in a red raincoat from Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973) met Minnie Mouse? (Exploring Popular Culture 2006) And what would happen to Michael Jackson’s chimpanzee if he was too cash strapped to look after his animals and the staff were barred from Neverland? (Bubbles 2006) Most worrying, Scheuerle’s visual replies to these questions, and many more, are entirely believable, perhaps even obvious. A devotee of the horror movie and consummate cynic, Scheuerle uses the theatrical codes of costume, makeup and scale to address transformational power relations in the sense that heroes become hobos, the cute become hideous and the pure are consumed by sleaze. Scheuerle throws the banalities of popular culture and contemporary lifestyle back in his audiences' face. And because this work should not be amusing, only makes it all the more engaging.
Kate Smith
Art is my hippy minefield
Kate Smith is an artist who wears her heart on her sleeve. She expresses considerable discomfort (angst) through the work she produces and further, with the very idea of being an artist. Each piece seems to challenge its own existence and ultimately question the very act of making art, an act that she sees as being somewhat superfluous to life’s harsher realities. Thus a dynamic interplay between indulgence and counter indulgence is evident as Smith makes it clear that she is struggling with big ART issues such as the personal, the spiritual, the political, the social and how these might be successfully manifest in an artwork.
Smith’s work is confident in its doubt. It might seem abject, banal and inane but it is also unapologetic in generating a highly engaging form off inbuilt self-critique. Through hindsight things change and there is a sense of flux in Smith’s work that emphases the fluidity of creative endeavor and the importance of a constant element of surprise.
Charlie Sofo
Charlie Sofo’s work is usually simple and straightforward, or at least his intentions are simple and straightforward. Lately he has been developing a different vocabulary for things. This means assigning new names to every day objects and ideas. It’s a big job and he probably won't finish it. Sofo’s work is impulsive; he wants to be able to change whenever he pleases and act on sudden ideas. His ideas are occasionally stupid. He’s trying to be human. Thematically, he is interested in love, but that's a broad subject. Thematically he is interested in everything, or at least everything he can lay his hands on.
INSTALL IMAGES BY BRENTON McGEACHIE
Foreground: Simon Sheuerle, Background: Paintings by Karena Keys
Background left: Paintings by Leah Bullen. Background right: Installation by Marina Neilson Foreground left and right: Simon Scheuerle
Right: Paintings by Meg Roberts. Back: Paintings by Karena Keys
Photographs and installations by Charlie Sofo
