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october 1 - 18, 2008
Beyond Belief - paradox of seeing
by Claire Busuttil Bridge
Claire Busuttil Bridge, known for the sensuous and impeccable realism of her figurative paintings as seen in this year’s Doug Moran National Portrait Prize and as winner of the Portia Geach Memorial Award’ People’s Choice Award of 2007, now leaps out of the box in this new body of work, a solo show at red gallery.
‘Beyond Belief’ is a paradox. Busuttil Bridge’s text-based works are shimmering surfaces across which ripple text and verse.As if arising from somewhere other and simultaneously receding, words dance a Sufi’s whirling motion, coming into and fading out of focus.
These works challenge our perceptions by confronting the very nature of the paradox of seeing and the symbiotic relationship between art, artist and viewer in the process of creativity. Intentionally, these works at once confound and elucidate.
Busuttil Bridge nudges at some fairly big ideas, leans philosophically into quantum mechanics’ entanglement theory, yet playfully and irreverently transforms these complexities into a visual poetry of such simplicity they can be likened to Zen koans.
Busuttil Bridge’s text works utilise materials such as brushed steel, vinyl, cast acrylic and chrome to form word ‘canvases’ alongside a series of ‘sculptural’ cuboid puzzle poems that the viewer is invited to interact with, solve or even further entangle. Inherent is an acknowledgement of the viewer’s intrinsic power to interpret, as participant in the creation of coherence in the works. Alongside these ‘new medium’ works, hang Busuttil Bridge’s intimate figurative oil paintings of delicious detail, vibrating with subtle emotional force or alternatively, playing with our field of visual perception.
With a background in Sociolinguistics and sign language interpreting, these works merge Busuttil Bridge’s passion for the visual and for language whilst exploring the very nature of the interaction between the artist, art object and viewer.
What remains to be seen is beyond belief.
Para-dox latin derivation: ‘para’ meaning near, contrary to or beyond and ‘dox’ meaning opinion or belief. [Origin: 1530–40; < L paradoxum < Gk parádoxon, n. use of neut. of parádoxos unbelievable, lit., beyond belief.] ~Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
For more images and information on the artist please visit www.clairebusuttilbridge.com.
by Linda Erceg
Shadowlands explores imagined landscapes and characters drawn from myth, legend and folktale. In Erceg’s images these are all transported in time through popular culture. Understanding the location of these stories as an expression of the collective unconscious they represent potent symbols,which resonate through time and across cultures. Shadowlands, uses contemporary plastic toys and hand-made paper models to embody such archetypal settings as forest, desert, mountain and ocean. The diorama constructs are then transformed into a series of digital prints, which highlight the dreamlike, illusory and cinematic quality of the images. These narratives are located in a psychologically constructed space at the interface of child and adult worlds; a space that is familiar but ultimately ambiguous in meaning.
Linda Erceg completed her Honours in Fine Art at the Hobart School of Art (Photography) in 1997 and a Masters in Media Arts at RMIT University in 2000, and is currently enrolled in the PhD program at RMIT University, where her research is centered on the meaning of the contemporary toy. Erceg currently teaches in the Visual Arts Department at RMIT University.
Erceg has exhibited nationally and internationally.
by Alex Penfold
Alex Penfold’s latest body of photographs employ the psychological theory of a child’s ‘formative years’ as a basis for examination. The works play between the flags of originality, both conceptually and stylistically. Penfold explores the construction of human identity and the associated impossibilities of doing so, resulting in a show that trips between a sense of fun, faux, and fear.
Alex Penfold is a Melbourne based artist, who completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Photography) at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2007.
opening night drinks
thursday october 2nd
5 - 7 pm
exhibition duration: october 1 -18, 2008