From Andrew Frost…
Drawing isn’t showbiz. Even at its grandest, the art of drawing is effaced and subtle, modest and intimate. And at small scales, with an emphasis on the subtle nuance of mark and shade, it requires your attention. Teo Treloar’s A Willingness to Forget is a fine example of this tradition with the added bonus of the artist’s willingness to explore the process of drawing as metaphor.
In the exhibition Treloar presents sixteen variations on the same found image, a male figure in deep concentration, perhaps scientifically observing, closely reading or studying. All contextual clues have been removed – including the figure’s lower torso and legs – leaving only a cypher. Across the suite of images, Treloar varies colour and texture, with varying degrees of opaqueness, using different methods including bee’s wax, masking tape and transparent papers.
For Treloar the suite speaks to the existential anxieties of the contemporary world. Attempting to see clearly, or to clarify, while adrift in a sea of empty paper, is the conceptual rowboat of Treloar’s project, a long journey across the seas of the absurd and the ephemeral to the shores of an uncertain metaphor. These intriguing images constitute the artist’s log books.
Until April 26
DNA Projects, Chippendale.
Pic: Teo Treolar, Untitled No. 4 [detail], 2013. Courtesy of the artist.
