From Andrew Frost…
Two guys named Kieran with two separate but related practices. Kieran Bryant and Kieran Butler, recent graduates of the honours program at UNSW Art & Design, work in ways that describe a relationship to the history of the forms they use. Bryant is a performance artist working in often demanding physical activities that test the limits of the performer’s ability to reach the conclusion of each piece. The 2014 performance Bag saw the artist place a plastic bag over his head and try to breathe while in Drain [also 2014] Bryant sucked up water from the shores of a lake through a large tube. Butler, meanwhile, works in what might be loosely termed post-painting , a critical exploration of the phenomenology of the ‘thingness’ of the painting object. Recent works such as Impossible Propositions [2014] used Polaroids to experiment with the fading of colour while Magenta Matter Propositions for A Thing [2014] examined the limits of what might be called a painting and what might be a photograph.
For their joint show at Kudos Gallery the artist’s state that the show will present “…two artists examining the dialogue available between their individual practices and collaborative process” by “…situating themselves in a dual environment within a gallery the artists hope to achieve a binary system in which the audience is left to question what connects these two together: will the collaborative whole be greater than the sum of its parts?” While it might seem that the Bryant and Butler’s works are radically different in form, they’re connected by a fascination with the conceptual process of making art, taking its history as a cue to unblushingly revive defunct technology and tropes [nudity, video,painting as object] and reboot them for the contemporary moment.
March 31 – April 11
Kudos Gallery, Paddington
