![AROUND THE GALLERIES Dan RulePublished: The Age, A2, February 20, 2010.
WHAT Peter Hennessey: My Hell’s GateWHERE Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, 200 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, 9419 3406, gertrude.org.au
In a detour from his vast, balsa and plywood recreations of space-race machinery, Melbourne artist Peter Hennessey’s latest installation at GCAS sets its sights firmly on the explosion. In what could only be described as a brave move, on behalf of both the artist and the gallery, Hennessey has restaged and documented an albeit downscaled version of the infamous detonation of rock formations in New York’s East River in 1885; a large-scale detonation that is thought to be largest planned explosion until the atomic bomb and effectively ushered in the explosive era. Hennessey detonated a plaster casting submerged in a tonne of water (encased in a reinforced perspex cube) and documented the blast via two videos and various still images. The results are striking. While the slow motion videos and large-scale photographs evidence the explosion as aesthetic spectacle, the cube – which rests mutely in the centre of the gallery, shattered plaster lining its base – acts as an ominous, sobering past tense. It’s this dualistic quality that comes to define the show. My Hell’s Gate resonates with unsettling beauty and outright brutality; the stuff of the big screen and modern militarism. Hennessey confers the explosive status as both cultural artefact and the epitome of dehumanised violence. Runs alongside Jesse Jones’ superb filmic work Mahogany. Tues to Fri 11am–5.30pm, Sat 11am–4.30pm, until February 27.
WHAT Rhys Lee: New York – PeruWHERE Block Projects, Level 4, 289 Flinders Land, city, 9662 9148, blockprojects.com
The title of Rhys Lee’s expansive new body of work may insinuate notions of place and travel, but Lee’s journey seems as deeply psychological, even metaphysical, as it does geographical. Across 96 arcane, wonky, ghoulish ink-on-paper works – created during stints in New York and South America – the Brisbane raised artist merges the diaristic with the summoning of corrupted souls. A sketch of a sleeping dog sits in the midst of hellish portraits; hollow eye sockets and hungry, dangerous mouths offset splay-legged monster-femmes and mutant faux-porn. More cute dogs and puppies pop up here and there, as does an erection from a headless male torso. It’s disturbing, crazy and droll. Lee’s vision may be dystopic, but it’s never so bleak to be suffocating. Deranged souls, it seems, can also prove devilishly engaging. Wed to Fri 11am–6pm, Sat 11am–4pm, until February 27.
WHAT Ede Horton: Perspective, Ian Bunn: Spinning PopWHERE Shifted, Level 1, 15 Albert Street, Richmond, 9421 0884, shifted.net.au
Each of these very much distinct shows finds its grounding in a particular sense reinterpretation. Created after a four-month residency in Berlin, the petite, finely detailed black and white glass sculptures that comprise Ede Horton’s [start italic]Perspective[end italic] suggest that nothing is quite as it seems. A pair of still-life ‘talking hands’ are re-imagined with vivid blue eyes perched on the knuckle of each index finger; a human foot sports eyes, a mouth and elfin ears. The implication seems one of inherent human complexity. Horton offers the body not as an endpoint, but as a vessel for infinite layers and memories and histories. In the adjoining gallery, meanwhile, Ian Bunn’s loud, pigmented ink-on-paper works recast pop art’s whim for mass media imagery in the context of the contemporary proliferation of digital content. Rather than offering a bold repetition of a one-off consumer icon, Bunn’s works are vividly distractive, drawing on innumerable fractured images and points of reference. While Bunn’s allusion to digital noise is nothing new, his comparison to pop gives something of a fresh take. Wed to Sat 11am–5pm, until February 27.
WHAT Locust JonesWHERE Karen Woodbury Gallery, 4 Albert Street Richmond, 9421 2500, kwgallery.com
In some ways, New Zealand born artist Locust Jones’ striking, lithe aesthetic recalls the mid-career work of American artists like Phil Frost. Unlike much of the post-graffiti works of that era, however, Jones’ sprawling, loose, nonetheless meticulously detailed ink-on-paper compositions pulse with an explicit political electricity that transcends mere sloganeering. The meld of faces, figuration, cityscape and text that comprise the vast works of his current show at Karen Woodbury unfurl like a stream-of-consciousness newswire. Works like [start italic]Michael Jackson’s heart attack and the Tehran riots[end italic] writhe amid a sea of faces, placards, political leaders, text and bodies, while [start italic]Climate Change 2[end italic] sees a map of the world rupturing at the seams, spilling blood-like lava every which way. Jones’ works are dire, but no more so, one might argue, than the world we live in. Wed to Sat 11am–5pm, until February 27.](http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kyai68rVBu1qa3c8ao1_400.jpg)
AROUND THE GALLERIES Dan Rule
Published: The Age, A2, February 20, 2010.
WHAT Peter Hennessey: My Hell’s Gate
WHERE Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, 200 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, 9419 3406, gertrude.org.au
In a detour from his vast, balsa and plywood recreations of space-race machinery, Melbourne artist Peter Hennessey’s latest installation at GCAS sets its sights firmly on the explosion. In what could only be described as a brave move, on behalf of both the artist and the gallery, Hennessey has restaged and documented an albeit downscaled version of the infamous detonation of rock formations in New York’s East River in 1885; a large-scale detonation that is thought to be largest planned explosion until the atomic bomb and effectively ushered in the explosive era. Hennessey detonated a plaster casting submerged in a tonne of water (encased in a reinforced perspex cube) and documented the blast via two videos and various still images. The results are striking. While the slow motion videos and large-scale photographs evidence the explosion as aesthetic spectacle, the cube – which rests mutely in the centre of the gallery, shattered plaster lining its base – acts as an ominous, sobering past tense. It’s this dualistic quality that comes to define the show. My Hell’s Gate resonates with unsettling beauty and outright brutality; the stuff of the big screen and modern militarism. Hennessey confers the explosive status as both cultural artefact and the epitome of dehumanised violence. Runs alongside Jesse Jones’ superb filmic work Mahogany. Tues to Fri 11am–5.30pm, Sat 11am–4.30pm, until February 27.
WHAT Rhys Lee: New York – Peru
WHERE Block Projects, Level 4, 289 Flinders Land, city, 9662 9148, blockprojects.com
The title of Rhys Lee’s expansive new body of work may insinuate notions of place and travel, but Lee’s journey seems as deeply psychological, even metaphysical, as it does geographical. Across 96 arcane, wonky, ghoulish ink-on-paper works – created during stints in New York and South America – the Brisbane raised artist merges the diaristic with the summoning of corrupted souls. A sketch of a sleeping dog sits in the midst of hellish portraits; hollow eye sockets and hungry, dangerous mouths offset splay-legged monster-femmes and mutant faux-porn. More cute dogs and puppies pop up here and there, as does an erection from a headless male torso. It’s disturbing, crazy and droll. Lee’s vision may be dystopic, but it’s never so bleak to be suffocating. Deranged souls, it seems, can also prove devilishly engaging. Wed to Fri 11am–6pm, Sat 11am–4pm, until February 27.
WHAT Ede Horton: Perspective, Ian Bunn: Spinning Pop
WHERE Shifted, Level 1, 15 Albert Street, Richmond, 9421 0884, shifted.net.au
Each of these very much distinct shows finds its grounding in a particular sense reinterpretation. Created after a four-month residency in Berlin, the petite, finely detailed black and white glass sculptures that comprise Ede Horton’s [start italic]Perspective[end italic] suggest that nothing is quite as it seems. A pair of still-life ‘talking hands’ are re-imagined with vivid blue eyes perched on the knuckle of each index finger; a human foot sports eyes, a mouth and elfin ears. The implication seems one of inherent human complexity. Horton offers the body not as an endpoint, but as a vessel for infinite layers and memories and histories. In the adjoining gallery, meanwhile, Ian Bunn’s loud, pigmented ink-on-paper works recast pop art’s whim for mass media imagery in the context of the contemporary proliferation of digital content. Rather than offering a bold repetition of a one-off consumer icon, Bunn’s works are vividly distractive, drawing on innumerable fractured images and points of reference. While Bunn’s allusion to digital noise is nothing new, his comparison to pop gives something of a fresh take. Wed to Sat 11am–5pm, until February 27.
WHAT Locust Jones
WHERE Karen Woodbury Gallery, 4 Albert Street Richmond, 9421 2500, kwgallery.com
In some ways, New Zealand born artist Locust Jones’ striking, lithe aesthetic recalls the mid-career work of American artists like Phil Frost. Unlike much of the post-graffiti works of that era, however, Jones’ sprawling, loose, nonetheless meticulously detailed ink-on-paper compositions pulse with an explicit political electricity that transcends mere sloganeering. The meld of faces, figuration, cityscape and text that comprise the vast works of his current show at Karen Woodbury unfurl like a stream-of-consciousness newswire. Works like [start italic]Michael Jackson’s heart attack and the Tehran riots[end italic] writhe amid a sea of faces, placards, political leaders, text and bodies, while [start italic]Climate Change 2[end italic] sees a map of the world rupturing at the seams, spilling blood-like lava every which way. Jones’ works are dire, but no more so, one might argue, than the world we live in. Wed to Sat 11am–5pm, until February 27.
