From Andrew Frost…
Ali Noble’s Love Glow is the show that will restore to the pantheon of contemporary art materials the good name of felt and all other items consigned to craft time obscurity. In fact, Noble’s series of simple, geometric abstract pictures are all created using felt and glue, and their fuzzy, warm surfaces work brilliantly with geometric patterning, interlocking puzzle piece shapes and elegant circles. The artist’s choice of colours creates some stunning contrasts and visual effects and leaves the viewer with yes, a love glow.
The accompanying exhibition is Shalini Jardin’s The Span, a small show of paintings and watercolours that continues the artist’s fascination with hybrid life forms. These imaginary creatures are derived in part a genetic level with humans, and the paintings depict moments of metamorphosis in cell division and other odd and obscure events too small to be seen. Jardin’s technique is to paint in detail with flowing, connecting lines and carefully constructed contrasts of human and the inhuman in images of eyes, hands and faces. The best of these works have a strange and startling ambiguity that is once confronting, but also allows the viewer into their conceptual worlds.
Until August 10
Flinders Street Gallery, Surry Hills
Pic: Shalini Jardin, The Daydream, 2013. Watercolour on paper, 29x21cms. Courtesy Flinders Street Gallery.
