From Andrew Frost…
Firstdraft’s emerging curator’s program has proven to be one of the gallery’s most reliable and exciting ongoing initiatives, giving curators a place to experiment and expand the gallery’s already bustling exhibition schedule. Consuelo Cavaniglia‘s Chromatic Syncopation brings together the work of three artists Rebecca Baumann, Ross Manning and Reko Rennie linked by their shared fascination with colour, mechanisation and reproduction.
Rennie uses traditional Indigenous geometric patterning in intense and almost psychedelic contrasts of colour that evoke on the one hand Op Art as well as on the other, the traditions of the artist’s association to the Kamilaroi people. Manning – is an interdisciplinary artist working with installation, technology, kinetics and sound – animates every day objects into uncannily alive spirits. Baumann’s work is as elegantly simple as the work of her fellow artist’s in the show, here utilising fans and note books to produce an optically dazzling experience from just a few elements. The strength of Cavaniglia’s curation is finding the connections between the works while leaving the exact associations loose and free and at the discretion of the viewer.
Until March 27
Firstdraft, Woolloomooloo
Pic: Rebecca Baumann, Motion Study II, 2009. Wire bound books, paper, industrial fans, Dimensions variable. Photography: Bewley Shaylor Image courtesy the artist.
The pages were ripped the paper quality very low, look like it was binded at office works, the flicker kinetic movement wasn’t working because pages ripped, – dirt and debris on the work – was awful. Very embarrassing and unprofessional. I expect to see better at somewhere like First Draft. The concept was good, the homage to Rebecca was nice but the materials, aesthetic and thought putting into the creation of the work was a total after thought. Very disappointing.