AROUND THE GALLERIES Dan Rule
Published: The Age, A2, April 17, 2010.
WHAT Matt Hinkley
WHERE Neon Parc, Level 1, 53 Bourke Street, city, 9663 0911, neonparc.com.au
One can’t help but wonder just how often people overlook Matt Hinkley’s incredibly subtle, painstakingly rendered objects and artworks, such is their diminutive scale and minuteness of detail. The works that comprise the Melbourne-based artist’s latest show at Neon Parc are so minuscule – their individual details even more so – they’re easy to miss on first pass. With time though (and perhaps a good pair of spectacles) his modified found objects, tiny polymer clay castings and etched technological artefacts espouse a beautiful, almost poetic cadence. The close inspection of an aged, yellowed computer keyboard, a first-generation wireless phone and a tiny aluminium rod reveal casings and surfaces covered by the most scrupulous of patterns and pinprick etchings; what appear tiny clay abstractions divulge miniature castings. A common motif is the keyboard and number pad – the interface of first generation digital tools such as calculators, remote controls and early PCs – yet Hinkley’s delicately hand-rendered amendments feel almost reminiscent of folk art. It’s this odd collision that makes his work so seductive. While so much art of its ilk feels snottily ironic and contemptuous of its audience, Hinkley’s fragments and techno-relics are quietly engaging and thoroughly realised. Wed to Sat noon–6pm, until May 8.
WHAT Heather Betts: Joy and Disturbance
WHERE Lindberg Galleries, Level 2, 289 Flinders Lane, city, 0403 066 775, lindbergcontemporary.com.au
Joy and Disturbance is a fitting title for Heather Betts’ latest body of work. These striking, expressionistic oil and charcoal works evoke a divine beauty and an almost guttural din, a swooning lyricism and an abject violence. There’s a resonance of German Expressionism, a flare and curve and movement that echoes Whiteley. Perhaps most remarkable is Betts’ inclination for volume and texture. Laden with oils – rich, bloody reds, flashes of yellow and ominous black – and scarred with charcoal markings, her paintings splay powerfully between forms and dimensions. Protagonists writhe in what could be pleasure or pain, ghosted by repetitious outlines and shadows. Figures emerge from the clamour of colour and line, their presence either an omen from above or below. Betts’ world is one where the conscious and the unconscious – the body and spirit – forever haunt each other. Wed to Sat 11am–5pm, until May 5.
WHAT Contemporary Australian Drawings 1
WHERE RMIT Gallery, 344 Swanston Street, city, 9925 1717, rmit.edu.au/rmitgallery
This survey exhibition of Australian drawing transcends graphite, charcoal and ink. Framing notions of drawing as “an integral aspect to the artist’s thinking”, curator Dr. Irene Barberis casts a net far and wide for this show, compiling work that fulfils various roles – whether developmental, realised or otherwise – within artists’ process. It’s perhaps some of more experimental works that are the most intriguing. Sarah Tomasetti’s textural fresco and graphite on muslin works are fascinating in their composition and attention to surface, as are Wilma Tabacco’s stunning gold leaf works and Hilary Mais’ 1973 linear gouache and graphite drawings. The series of works that prove the most engaging, however, is the exhibition’s most economical. Noel McKenna’s quartet of childlike ink-on-paper drawings – illustratively titled Rear of Horse, Greyhound, Horse Lying Down and Dog Beside Stool – are charming in their simplicity and seem to perfectly condense the beauty and complexity of the hand drawn. Quite simply, they say so much via so little. Mon to Fri 11am–5pm, Sat noon-5pm, until June 26.
WHAT Pippa Sanderson and Kirsty Lillico: Surface
WHERE Blindside, Level 7, Room 14, Nicholas Building, 37 Swanston Street, city, 9650 0093, blindside.org.au
In another fascinating exploration of the conventions of contemporary drawing practice, Pippa Sanderson and Kirsty Lillico skirt the perimeters between art making and performance in Surface. The outcome of three performances last week – in which the two artists, adorned in protective white suits, used cup-like “blowing devices” to create vivid orbs of dripping blue and orange paint on one of the gallery walls – the work effectively deconstructs and illustrates parallels between the activities of drawing and performance. With Sanderson and Lillico’s once-white suits hanging as pigment-splattered evidence beside the paint-covered wall, we are reminded of the linkages and physical, gestural process of cause and effect between artist and artwork. Thurs to Sat noon–6pm, until April 24.
