Winter sunshine is a lovely thing and there are few roads in Paddington more beautiful at this time of year than the streets around the NSW University College of Fine Arts. Kudos Gallery – COFA’s off site exhibition space in Napier Street- has shows that go by so rapidly that’s it almost impossible to keep up, many on for just a few days, and until this Saturday July 9 is the show Reveal curated by Pao-Ching Wang that lasts for a mere three days. It was by some fated chance that we walked into the gallery and were suddenly overtaken by the sensation that all was right with the world.
Reveal is a show of painting and video works by four artists and it is a small treasure. The paintings of Panchali Sheth are abstract pieces that marry pattern with gestural elements in dark reds, yellow and black. Yellow Ritual and Night Rituals I & II are stand outs. Caroline Huf has a video work called Ticketweave that’s fine but it’s the accompanying woven objects that took our attention. Using old medicine boxes, Panadol packets and other unlikely objects (dogs toys we think) she has made a series of woven pieces that could actually reignite our interest in craft. Peter Nelson has four intense cartoony landscape paintings that look like Rick-Amor-meets-Chris-Ware on some kind of drug that makes you get real small. In the highly gaseous atmosphere of contemporary art, this is a beautifully staged if all too temporary show.
