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july 25 - august 12
Ian Wells’ exhibition is a collection of medium scale abstract paintings. Wells paints with soft stains, abrupt lines and polished surfaces.
By painting in the abstract Wells has captured life’s non tangibles, the experiences that can not be expressed verbally or possibly by any other media. Caught in his paintings are slivers of emotion tied to a distant memory, the beauty of something barely noticed and the strange appeal of the lopsided and awkward.
Wells’ visual perception of his subject matter is in itself an abstracted process. Visual perception is a synthesis of meaning and order from an illogical visual truth. The action of seeing is the beginning of the abstraction process. From there Wells sifts and filters input, securing in paint the crucial information.
The resulting abstracted forms shift slightly in tone, and surfaces bump gently across the field. Each form in a painting moves slowly through the picture plane.
Ian Wells has exhibited extensively throughout Melbourne
by Louisa Jenkinson and Josie Fagan
The transient fissure is a glimpse into a temporary space. A brief interlude from the impositions of reality, The transient fissure lures the viewer with a seductive offer of the bizarre.
Through the medium of drawing Fagan and Jenkinson offer the contents of a different space. The constraints of universal axioms have been abandoned and each artist has found an alternative rule.
Jenkinson’s large scale charcoal drawings offer the ludicrous and unexpected. Lemurs coerce zebras, ocelots teach goldfish and leopards ride alligators while a chimp plays “bitch slappin’ rabbits”.
Fagan has found a built environment in a virtual world. Artificial constructions have been discovered and reconstructed using graphite and charcoal. The result is an ethereal synthesis of light and potential form.
Fagan completed an Advanced Diploma in Electronic Design and Interactive Media at RMIT in 2002. Jenkinson completed a Masters of Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2002. Since then she has exhibited extensively in Melbourne in group and solo exhibitions.
by Tania Virgona
Bodytide is a quirky collection of small scale drawings. Through graphite and pigment, Virgona explores the sensation of water and its metaphoric connotations in relation to the subconscious. Virgona describes in a visual language the unseen elements that surround the human experience.
Through the process of relinquishing control of the mind and suspending aesthetic judgment, Virgona drops into the mode of automated drawing. The result is a fluid collection of blue drawings where people morph into fish and fish to leaves and leaves to water, water to trees and trees to people.
Virgona extends the traditional notion of drawing. As well as the application of graphite and water colour: piercing, tearing, cutting, sewing and wetting the surface carry equal importance in the mark making process. The paper becomes an object as much as a surface for drawing upon.
Virgona completed postgraduate studies at RMIT in 2001. Since then she has been involved in several public art projects throughout Victoria. She has recently returned to further her studies at La Trobe University. This is her first solo exhibition at red gallery.
opening night drinks
wednesday july 26
6-8pm
exhibition duration: july 25 - august 12