Digital Organic

From Andrew Frost…

Looking at Stephen Ormandy‘s Digital Organic at Olsen Irwin, one might reasonably ask: just how abstract is abstract anyway? Ormandy has an eye for organic shapes and arresting colour combinations, a gorgeous and elegantly simple sequence of elements that are recombined in a variety of sizes and materials in his latest collection of paintings, prints and sculptures. Reminiscent of Bauhaus colour theory pictures – and particularly the work of Hans Arp with its interlocking shapes and suggestions of organic life – Ormandy playfully evokes a subject wihin his combination of colourful circles, lozenges and slivers – Clown, Pollination and The Toast Danced With The Egg [each 2014] for example, give a sense of narrative and form to what otherwise might be considered an example of pure design ingenuity.

Curiously, the title for this show is a little more explicit than previous exhibitions and takes the work into another realm. The ability to warp, distort and transform a source image in the computer is virtually unlimited, as is the ability to reduce it down to its basic elements.But beyond that literal interpretation, Ormandy’s work evokes a flatland universe of interacting modules, tiny hermetic places unaware of our observation, and at the large scale of the artist’s biggest canvases, a window to another exotic place.

Until December 7
Olsen Irwin, Woollahra
Pic: Stephen Ormandy, Surf check, 2014. Oil on linen, 153x122cm.