From Andrew Frost…
If one were given to making rash statements about the state of painting one might be tempted to say that painting is on the verge of being reborn for the new century. Of course, such a statement would be ridiculous because painting is always in the process of being reinvented, reevaluated and reconsidered – but even so, in the light of so many new[ish] ways of thinking about painting, from the expanded field to the post internet wave, it certainly feels like painting has a reached a new zeitgeisty moment. The group show PAINT14 featuring the work of Ry David Bradley, Daniel Hollier and Gian Manik offers up some examples of where thinking about painting has brought us.
In Manik’s Untitled 2 the tension between abstraction and representation serves as the driving conceptual and perceptual gambit: seemingly abstract, Manik’s huge painting is instead a realistic rendering of the way light falls on metallic foil while Hollier’s shaped canvases push against the fairly arbitrary line between a painting and a sculpture. Bradley’s wispy line work in enamels on suede remind the viewer of clouds while making a persuasive claim for its unlikely materials. While none of the works could perhaps be called radically new their context certainly is – they exist within an art world coming to grips with the idea of social connection that is as intangible as a cloud, or indeed, obliged to communicate via one.
Until November 1
Artereal Gallery, Rozelle
Pic: Gian Manik, Untitled 2, 2014. Oil on canvas, 255x217cms.
