UNFOLDED MAGENTA WORLD 7th March - 13th April 2015 WEST Project Space 38 Railway Pde, Hazelbrook The Blue Mountains NSW AUSTRALIA
REFLEX COLLABORATION
curated by Billy Gruner, Kyle Jenkins and Tarn McLean
UNFOLDED MAGENTA WORLD UNFOLDED MAGENTA WORLD is the second exhibition at WEST project space, The Blue Mountains newest artist-run project space. UNFOLDED MAGENTA WORLD is an exhibition in three parts, including: REFLEX COLLABORATION & INTERNATIONAL STUDIO RESIDENCY featuring a Peter Holm (DK) Wallwork and objekt from the Unfolded Painting series. MAGENTA curated by Beata Geyer, including artists: Louise Blyton, Sue Callanan, Adrian Clement, Fiona Davies, Beata Geyer, Shavaurn Hanson, Joel Lambeth, Tom Loveday, Ian Milliss, Tobias Richardson, Margaret Roberts, Hayley West, Caroline Wilde and Kayo Yokoyama. EVER SINCE THE WORLD BEGAN by Zeb Olsen and Nick Strike, with live performance by Nick and Zeb on 7th March 2015 at 3pm.
REFLEX COLLABORATION is part of MOUNTAIN TO MOUNTAIN Exhibition exchange between WEST project space in Hazelbrook, Blue Mountains NSW & RAYGUN project space, Toowoomba QLD. This exhibition exchange looks at activities of various art collectives that are situated on the Great Dividing range, on the edge of two of Australia’s largest cities Brisbane and Sydney. This exhibition exchange is about displaying the divergent and eclectic conceptual and visual approaches to art making and presentation within the two communities. Both WEST and RAYGUN are two project spaces that deal in conceptual based painting and object practices, and as such enable artists the freedom to develop new projects that further develop their artistic practices. This is about making a connection between two distinct artistic communities through a shared creative dialogue. Within the REFLEX COLLABORATION, artists will be invited to execute a wall painting (in both Toowoomba and Hazelbrook). The REFLEX COLLABORATION is also part of the broader international project known as REFLEX, which is undertaken to demonstrate the varied, complex and extremely broad spectrum of divergent phenomena which comes out of painting. REFLEX’s aim is to create dual exhibition sites that display a wide range of national and international artists and their individual painting concerns. REFLEX is solely a wall painting exhibition project; where through the creation of wall paintings, it can lead to an intervention of meaning being established in a site as not a decorative function but as an artistic statement and / or proposition of intention / conceptual statement. REFLEX is run by practicing artists Kyle Jenkins and Tarn McLean whose practices are firmly based within methods of painting that investigate the connections between formal and informal, conceptual and visual methodologies of abstraction. They are not curators, and as such, artists are invited to execute any work they wish. It is from this direction that the project is inexistence. The aim of REFLEX is not to display wall painting as decoration but wall painting as expanded painted intent. Due to painting’s expansion and limits, the wall (determined by a building’s architecture) becomes a field of open possibilities (not unlike a blank canvas). However in this field, the laneway, the street, the town, the city, and the meandering passer by all become locked into the subdivisions of colours, geometry and form that at once attempts to exploit the wall (as plane) and also tries and overcome it by expanding on its possibilities into new semi-permanent visual outcomes. This dialogue demonstrates the unity of architecture to wall design (painting) that can be established through each invited artists own personal intensions.
INTERNATIONAL STUDIO RESIDENCY PETER HOLM (DK)
Peter Holm’s wallwork at WEST is based on reference to his early series of paintings titled SUNUPS and the new series UNFOLDED PAINTING. It is a simple painterly gesture of a colour range that slides and unfolds. Holm will make his final decision once he sees the space and work from scratch and some sketched ideas. Holm’s work through the past 20 years evolves around solutions on painterly problems and possible solutions, utilizing anything from personal reflections to architecture, design and (art)-history. Peter Holm’s work is about an advancing of painting, sculpture and installation. It is dedicated to artistic development through being historically informed and contemporaneously critical. He describes reductive pieces (paintings, chairs, car doors, etc) as objects sensitive to colour and atmosphere. These painted objects are constructed via a precise intent, and the atmosphere of the work provides the art-critical reading. As Holm’s oeuvre is further characterised by a special nature and expression of the whimsical, his ideas are formulated along the way and revised accordingly. Peter Holm is a renowned contemporary Danish artist who has been showing in Australia for around 20 years. He first came as a guest of CBD gallery in Sydney but soon found friends in various spaces including MOP and SNO. As part of his 2015 Australian tour he will be showing at RAYGUN in Toowoomba, MOP in Sydney, and also as a guest International Studio Artist at WEST in The Blue Mountains. In his residency at WEST Holm will produce a rare wall work design and show an objekt. Holm runs a project space in Copenhagen with his partner and renowned artist Karin Lind. In Holm and Lind’s project space they have shown many Australian artists, who have enjoyed that benefit immensely. peterholm.info Peter Holm is supported by the
Peter Holm, RGBY - (RedGreenBlueYellow ) from the Unfolded Painting series (2015)
MAGENTA
CURATED BY BEATA GEYER The grouping of artists with very diverse art practices and approaches to art production explores the notion of magenta, both as concept and as percept, in various imaginative contexts. Artist and curator Beata Geyer presents this exhibition as a multilayered installation where different artistic responses merge to create an exciting viewing experience. Magenta is contained not just within the pictorial or spatial spectrum but also within the conceptual multitude of perspectives and overlay of forms and dimensions. The interaction of colour between form, material, space and architecture unlocks the multitude of meanings attempting to define what magenta potentially is. Beata Geyer is a Polish-born, visual artist and curator based in the Blue Mountains. She has studied architecture and urban design in Warsaw University of Technology, photography in City of Westminster College in London, and painting in Sydney College of the Arts, attaining her MVA in 2002 from the University of Sydney, with her exhibiting career spanning over 20 years both in Australia and internationally. Geyer’s artistic practice encompasses a variety of media, from painting, photography and video to large scale, site-specific installation and public art projects. Her ongoing interest in conceptual as well as formal aspects of painting, such as colour and form, and their relationship with architecture and landscape has manifested in projects that respond to site and its surroundings, spatially and chromatically engaging with the architectonics of exhibiting spaces and locations. Artists Included in Magenta are: Louise Blyton, Sue Callanan, Adrian Clement, Fiona Davies, Beata Geyer Shavaurn Hanson, Joel Lambeth, Tom Loveday, Ian Milliss, Tobias Richardson, Margaret Roberts, Hayley West, Caroline Wilde and Kayo Yokoyama
Fiona Davies, Blood on Silk: Magenta, 2015
MAGENTA ARTISTS
Sue Callanan, Hanging Gardens of Baubelom 2015, plastic baubles, DVDs, felt (20cmx 50cm x 290cm): as part of the architecture of the room which it occupies (3m x 4m x 3m)
SUE CALLANAN’S work is intended as something of a folly- a delight in the explosion
of magenta and her discovery, or enquiry, into what colour it actually is. “The hanging gardens” within an internal, windowless space, play against the notion of antiquity and abundance of “the hanging Gardens of Babylon”, as it speaks to the confined nature of the space and its architectural idiosyncrasies. Louise Blyton, Little One 2015, Acrylic on linen, 10cm x 10cm x 25 cm
LOUISE BLYTON is a reductive artist exploring the romance of raw linen and dry
pigment. Her work is often in the form of shaped canvases or three dimensional wall sculptures. Experimenting with colour, light and form, she explores the fragility of beauty through subtle shifts of colour in layers. The structure of Blyton’s work appears strong and bold, yet it is fragile and reveals evidence of the hand and thus invites a quiet meditation between viewer and work. louiseblyton.com.au
Adrian Clement, Passage 2015, Artist book, 18cm x 18cm x 2cm
ADRIAN CLEMENT is an artist and writer based in Sydney, Australia, working in the
mediums of sculpture, performance, installation, sound, photography, video and digital media. Informed by a practice of Zen Buddhism, aesthetics and sensibilities of traditional Japanese culture are melded with the conventions of minimalism and traits of popular culture in projects that predominately explore an expanded understanding of colour. Approaching his work as a means of play and humour, the artist seeks to embody the simplicity of childhood and a beginner’s mind by producing projects that favour an experiential reading.Clement graduated from the College of Fine Arts, UNSW with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2012 and from Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney University in 2013 with a Bachelor of Visual Arts with Honours (First Class). He is currently undertaking a PhD at Sydney College of the Arts, studying under the supervision of Lindy Lee, and was recently awarded the Australian Postgraduate Award and a Sydney University Alumni Scholarship. Passage is a 52 page artist book that fades gradually from white to pink to white. A ‘passage’ is literally “the action or process of moving through or past somewhere on the way from one place to another. adrianclement.com
Fiona Davies, Blood on Silk: Magenta 2015, Ribbon, Paint, 285cm x 285cm
FIONA DAVIES’ work has the codified pattern of eight drops of blood falling from
one metre onto a hard surface which is further coded into a weaving pattern, using satin ribbons and solid canvas. Through variations of the dyed colour magenta and the reflective properties of the satin weave in the ribbon, the work responds to the position of the viewer relative to the angle of light as a photonic device. In addition the location of the work in the gallery space exposes the sideways view of the work to the casual passing viewer in the corridor. Magenta as a name for a colour has been linked with war and bloodshed since the name of the aniline dyestuff Fuchsine was changed in 1859 to Magenta to celebrate the French victory at the battle of Magenta in northern Italy. Davies has worked within an arts/ science collaboration, Blood on Silk since 2010. She links medicalised death with newer technologies used in that process. One of these was the development of a biophotonic chip made of silk to be used to study the properties of blood while that blood was still circulating within the live body. fionadavies.com.au
Beata Geyer, Impossible Project Magenta Monochrome 2015, Instant Colour Film, 9cm x 10.5cm each
Shavaurn Hanson, Magenta Spectrum 2015, Aerosol paint on watercolour paper , approx 25cm x 35cm Shavaurn Hanson, Magenta Planar 2015, Aerosol paint on balsa wood, approx 40cm x 40 cm
BEATA GEYER’S photographs were taken during the installation week of the MA-
GENTA exhibition in the West Project Space. Geyer used her old Polaroid camera and Magenta 600 Monochrome, a colour instant film in which the only colour dye is magenta, rendering every image entirely in that colour. beatageyer.com
SHAVAURN HANSON is an emerging artist originally from Perth. She graduated
from Curtin University BA(art) in 2004. She has exhibited in Western Australia and was awarded an ArtsWA Quick Response grant in 2005. She completed a studio residency at SNO in 2011 and will be exhibiting at Factory 49 in August this year. Shavaurn’s work involves an investigation of colour as material to be manipulated within three and two dimensional planes.
Joel Lambeth, Aggregate (Variants 1-3) 2015, Collage on wood panel, 20cm x 20cm
Tom Loveday, 29.7% Magenta 2015, acrylic on canvas, 15cm x 15 cm Tom Loveday, 36.2% Magenta 2015, acrylic on canvas, 15cm x 15 cm
JOEL LAMBETH: When he was a child, the first words that Joel Lambeth ever spoke were
Mum, Dad, and then Coke. The images that have been produced in film, television, magazines and other forms of advertising mass media in the later part of the 20th century are not only his artistic tradition, but also his cultural heritage. His collage works sample images from the maelstrom of popular culture, remixing them and re-contextualising them in order to infuse them with personal meaning and describe intimate narratives. He has taken this bombardment of advertising ballyhoo and blended it with inspiration derived from the photomontage of Russian Constructivism and German Dada, to create work that is on one hand an autobiographical chronicle of his experiences, but that also serves as social commentary and cultural observation. joellambeth.com
DR TOM LOVEDAY is a contemporary artist and academic working in Sydney. He is a
senior lecturer at Sydney College of the Art, University of Sydney Australia where he supervises postgraduate research students and has taught undergraduate art theory. Dr Loveday exhibits artwork regularly both in commercial and independent galleries as well as maintaining an international and national research practice in art and architectural theory. Dr Loveday has also practiced and taught art and architecture, lectured in art history and theory and maintains a research profile in art theory and contemporary art practice. tomloveday.com
MAGENTA TOM LOVEDAY
To make magenta in most forms of oil-based or water-based paint, take a relatively large amount of cadmium red, say about two tablespoons full and add a very small amount of cobalt blue, say about two pinches. Then slowly add white until the red turns slightly towards pink, but stop before the white washes the slight blue out completely. Blue disappears before red when white is added, so be careful. Magenta should look a little darker than pink and slightly purplish. This is a painter’s approach to Magenta in which red is shifted towards other “primary” colours in the Red Green Blue Spectrum along with either black or white. Primary simply means colours that seem, like atoms, to be indivisible. This simple yet tricky mixing exercise shows that, in the RGB spectrum, magenta is a secondary colour, sitting between red and blue, often mistakenly thought to be precisely half way between them and sitting in a tone “higher” or whitened than pure colour. However, magenta is not high enough to be called a “pastel.”
Tom Loveday, Memorial 16 2009, acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100 cm
On the other hand, magenta is a primary colour in the “Cyan Magenta Yellow and Key (or black/white range)” (CMYK) spectrum, mostly associated with transparent printing inks and textiles dyes but also with computing and other screen-based technology. Like the RGB spectrum, the CMYK colour model for inks and paints is “subtractive” because each of its colours takes the rest of the spectrum’s colours away from white light – as if colour shines through the coloured plastic. Even when light is reflected from the colour, other wavelengths are removed and the spectrum is called “subtractive.” CMYK Magenta takes away all the colours except Magenta. Adding yellow to Magenta in the subtractive CMYK spectrum reduces the overall light intensity and turns it back where we started mixing the colour; red. Adding cyan reduces what light is left to grey. Despite being one of the subtractive primaries of the CMYK spectrum, magenta does not appear in the rainbow, nor is it in Newton’s prism separation of colour. Magenta is not a “natural” colour and as such is bound utterly to human vision, practices and understanding. It is also not mentioned in Goethe’s “Theory of Colour,” nor is mentioned even earlier by Leonardo in his notebooks. I have yet to find it is other philosophical writings of the 18th and 19th centuries, by writers such as Goethe and Shopenhauer, or the modernist theorists such as Itten and Albers, but it appears in the proliferation of technical colour systems and art students’ text books of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Phillipp Otto Runge, like almost all the subsequent theoretical colour systems, avoids magenta, preferring instead what looks like an RYB or RGB spectrum in his illustrations of his “farbenkugel”.
Magenta appears in certain colour ranges of flowers, at least before human vision. Perhaps this indicates that the many ways of understanding colour, from the various theoretical demonstrations offered by science, the philosophical attempts to explain colour and the many technical approaches are all in some way insufficient and for the most part cannot be reconciled. Sciences of various kinds, but especially the biological and zoological sciences have often anthropomorphised the vision of animals, birds and insects as if they all saw the same colours as mankind. It is now clear that even domestic animals such as cats and dogs have very different visual colour spectra and a quite different view of the world to humans, in which colours such as magenta may or may not exist. Since it does not appear in the Newtonian division of sunlight, magenta may well be a colour that only humans can see and as such may well be a significant cultural marker for human existence – a kind of reflective device for human civilisation. As such, its symbolic meaning is deeply tied to its sensual qualities, a combination that gives us one of humanities most important colour affects. As a kind of dark pink, magenta may be associated with the “feminine” pink and yet in the 19th century pink was definitively masculine, with blue as the feminine colour. The slight blueness of magenta – it is not simply red with added white – means that it carries just a little gender ambiguity. Red, which dominates the magenta mix, is the colour of “favoured by the gods,” especially in battle, perhaps because of its association with blood, either spilt or as the ancient Greek warrior’s “thumos” which might be thought of a kind of overall, righteous tumescence. In the Iliad, redness in various forms of imagery including sunsets, fires and even wine is regularly associated with Achilles preparing for battle, urging his troops to fight and manliness. Homer presents Achilles as the exemplar of the old kind of man whose body is a scene of passions, or righteous spirited thumos, especially in battle. Like purple, magenta can be understood as representing the “cooling” of red with blue that calms the warrior’s thumos introducing the new, modern man, presented by Homer’s central character in the Odyssey, Odysseus, whose reflective inner thoughts are distant from his body actions. Much later, Tyrian (“royal purple”) is a colour made from sea snails, the colour of the Roman senators signifies this thoughtfulness, a mode of being later regarded as “noble” among aristocrats throughout Europe. Tyrian purple ranged from what we would now call reddish cobalt blue to almost magenta. The 20th century is dominated by the Bauhaus/de Stijl primaries, even to the point where many artists, architects and designers assume that Red Yellow and Blue (RYB) are the purest primaries. This, of course, is a slight distortion of the RGB subtractive primaries, where yellow in regarded as more “primary” than green, perhaps due to the warmth of the colour or to the painter’s convention of mixing green from
cadmium yellow with a small amount of cobalt blue. It could also have been due to the prominence of Red Yellow and Blue in the Newtonian prismatic spectrum, which by the early 20th century, seemed to have eclipsed Goethe’s colour theory. Whatever the case, it leaves the impression that magenta, once a royal colour, is a mixed down, merged colour associated with false-ness, illusion and corruption. However, the pure joy of seeing magenta, especially in relation to other colours, remains one of the most intense colour experiences possible, which makes it naturally attractive to artists with an interest in colour. No doubt there will continue to be a lively and dynamic symbolic association for magenta, especially in artworks. Combined with the sheer joy of the colour itself, magenta’s presence and meaning remain one of the most significant defining aspects of what it means to be human. Dr Tom Loveday February 2015.
Ian Milliss and Patrick White (the cat), Untitled 2015, Lithographic print, 80cm x 60 cm
Tobias Richardson , Abattoir August 2014, Saint Louis, Senegal, Gouache on envelope, 32.5cm x 23cm
IAN MILLISS AND PATRICK WHITE (THE CAT): From the late 1970s to the mid 1990s
TOBIAS RICHARDSON: Over two days in the abattoir of Saint Louis, Senegal, I drew the
much of my life was tied up in various forms of publishing, sometimes as part of political activism and other times purely to make money. So when someone mentions magenta to me it is CMYK colour printing that we are talking about. And by pure coincidence I had ordered a CMYK colour gamut jigsaw puzzle as a Christmas holiday time waster and it had pure magenta as the very centre piece. All perfect. So I made it up for this exhibition, removed the central magenta piece so that effectively my work would have almost every colour except magenta - I’m keeping that for myself while you the viewer must imagine your own magenta in that space. However, life intervened. In the several days it sat there before I finally glued and mounted it. One of our cats, Patrick White, decided to sleep on it then disassemble and modify it to his own desires. While picking away at it he put numerous little puncture marks in the pristine pieces and completely shredded the surface of one piece. This provides the opportunity for faux profundity, a meditation on entropy and cats, excuses and reasons, the current descent into disorder and the destruction of knowledge and civilisation, the revenge of nature on humanity’s neat schemes, the imagination and aesthetic preferences of cats in their sleeping arrangements. The art historical precedents are slim but telling, ranging from a cat print on one of Degas’ pastels to the inky paw prints across the pages of a 15th century manuscript from Dubrovnik, and no doubt there are many others. milliss.com
slaughter of goats and some cows. tobiasrichardson.blogspot.com.au
Death of a Swallow, Inch’Allah, 2014, Photograph, 31cm x 46 cm
HAYLEY WEST’S current research directly relates to a lived awareness of death and
memorial. She works with soft sculptural forms, new media (with performative elements) and installation. West is currently a Masters by Research candidate with an Australian Post-Graduate Award (APA) scholarship, and is also involved in the Death Café movement. Margaret Roberts, Saving Space 2015, red & blue tulle netting and the room in which it is located. the tulle form expands to 127.5cm x 63.5cm x 10.7cm, the same as the wooden cupboard across the room. If the tulle and wooden forms were pushed together they would measure 12.75cm x 17.2cm x 10.7cm. But as the work does include the space between them, and also the whole room, its dimensions are more accurately approximately 3m x 4m x 3m.
MARGARET ROBERTS’ work is called Saving Space because it is a likeness of its
companion cupboard, only it takes up less space. It also attempts to save space in the opposite sense by being an expanded form of drawing that includes actual space within its language, thus refusing to participate in the devaluation of place that is implied by representations that only show what things look like, not also their spatial (and perhaps other) characteristics. margaretroberts.org
thecarrotjoke.blogspot.com
Caroline Wilde, Sedimentary lll 2015, Steel Frame, copper, recycled textiles, wool roving, wool, handspun and hand dyed yarns, 44cm x 33cm x 42cm
CAROLINE WILDE is an Architectural and Interior Designer, Weaver and Textile artist.
Wilde’s current series of weavings are textile representations of the sedimentary layers of our Blue Mountains, part of an ancient sea bed, formed by volcanic activity. Sedimentary lll is a slice of these layers and she uses the colours and textures of the yarns and fabrics to describe how she imagines it is.
Kayo Yokoyama, 108 Desires 2015, Glass, 7.5cm x 7.5cm each
KAYO YOKOYAMA: Born in Japan. Working in Blackheath.
EVER SINCE THE WORLD BEGAN ZEB OLSEN & NICK STRIKE The moshpit collapses the figure/ground dialectic: the audience is the field. Individual spectators briefly emerge to take the stage; a prelude to the stage-dive whereby they return as a point of intensity before dissolving once more in the sea of faces, the energy field of observers. This is Greenbergian grunge. Zeb Olsen and Nick Strike each draw out this moment to examine facets of the audience as subject, using film, sculpture and drawing. Private moments become public, someone is always watching. The spectator cannot turn away.
ZEB OLSEN is a writer, filmmaker, visual artist, musician and educator born in Sydney and currently living in the Blue Mountains of NSW. She is a graduate of Macquarie and Charles Sturt Universities, winner of the Darwin Festival Sculpture in the Park in 2006 and exhibited in Sculpture at Scenic World in 2012. zebolsenvisualartist.blogspot.com NICK STRIKE works primarily in the material and conceptual realm of contemporary sculpture. Recent work has developed the subject of sculpture in film, of the still as a point of gravity around which to detonate a constellation of associations. Nick has an MVA from SCA, he has been exhibiting since 1989. He Lives in Katoomba, and works in Sydney. stonevilla.com.au & 55sydenhamrd.com/nick-strike.
Zeb Olsen You Made me Realise, 2015 (still from film) DVD 98min
Inspired by Andy Warhol’s screen tests, You Made me Realise subjects its subjects to fifteen long minutes alone in front of the camera. From self-consciousness arises a sense of self and a sense of other. Time is slightly slowed as the viewer observes uncomfortable moments and small surprises. An improvised live recorded soundtrack, matched to each subject, gives an emotional depth to each face.
LIVE PERFORMANCE BY NICK & ZEB Nick and Zeb have been playing improvised music together on a weekly basis for the last two years. Their dueling guitar soundscapes move from sunny to sinister, reflecting the moment-to-moment moods of the artists and their surrounds. Rarely performing in public, Nick and Zeb play music for themselves, but they don’t mind if you enjoy it too.
Zeb Olsen, Bloglife, 2005 Fabric on metal frame 250cm x 150cm x 200cm photo by Marian Davis
Bloglife is Zeb Olsen’s blog writings from 2005 inscribed on a tent form. It explores the interface between the personal and the public, especially in relation to blogs and social websites. It attempts to challenge concepts of personal and public space.
Zeb Olsen, 51 faces, 2015 Charcoal on paper 210 x 250 cm
51 faces arose from a teaching exercise in which the steps to drawing a face with charcoal were followed from a Youtube video. Even though the steps were followed exactly every time, an individual face was miraculously revealed in each drawing through the tiniest accidents of line and shadow. Viewed en masse, the faces become ‘the faces of all who have lived and will one day live, from Adam until the end of time’ (Ibn al Arabi, quoted in Berger, Photocopies)
Nick Strike, Burndiver, 2013 Digital transfer of 16mm celluloid film. 11min 47sec
Nick Strike, Sound-Image, Detail, 2009-15
Nick Strike, Sound-Image, 2009-15. Fluorescent lights, vinyl LP’s, 35mm slides, shelves. 20cm x 240cm x 12 cm
MAP is a not-for profit incorporated association with tax charity status. MAP Association Incorporated Board & Executive Management Committee includes: Billy Gruner, Sarah Breen Lovett, Miriam Williamson & Mike Myers. MAP Ordinary Committee Members include: Sarah Keighery, Nikki Walkerden, David Haines, Micheal Lovett, Beata Geyer, Annalisa Capurro and Nicolas Loader. Many thanks to our building patrons Jim and Joyce Chivas. Thanks to Jacqueline Spedding & University of Sydney Architecture Faculty for equipment. www.modernartprojects.org
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