‘Special Moves‘, curated by Jonathan McBurnie, presents the work of six artists who closely investigate the practice of drawing in contemporary art.
Featuring a cross-section of media including drawing, painting, cross-stitch, video and printmaking, it highlights and unpacks the role of drawing at the core of contemporary art, and also explores how the tactile, intuitive and gestural qualities of the hand drawn are now situated – as both a resistance and a foundation – in relation to digital modes of expression.
The exhibiting artists – Julie Fragar, Christian Flynn, Leah Emery, Miles Hall, Arryn Snowball and Jonathan McBurnie – have been linked together at various times, as friends, rivals, mentors, collegues, students and teachers. Their ongoing artistic relationships add to the dynamic dialogue between their works.
Jonathan McBurnie is an artist whose practice revolves around drawing. His works are graphic, relating in both style and concept to science fiction, superhero comics and cult movies, while also incorporating aspects of classical painting, printmaking, cinema, and text. His works are often explore social, political, and cultural forces that affect the representation of the body, and these influences converge through drawing in combination with his personal observations and experiences.
The importance of drawing to McBurnie is clear, where as in some of the other works seen in ‘Special Moves’, it is considered in more subtle ways.
Of the importance of the act of drawing, Miles Hall says: “I like to play with the tactile qualities of the chosen medium, to see what range of marks I can achieve and on what kind of support. There is a certain quality in the mark and line that I look for, usually the work emerges from this very basic physical dimension. The process of inscribing marks then starts – form and idea arise simultaneously out of the act.”
A significant and recurring concept of the show is the relationship between figurative and abstract representation. Christian Flynn, whose gestural abstract paintings are influenced by science fiction and video games, explains: “For me paintings are objects first, not surrogates for other things. Even though they do stand in for non-material things such as ideas. It is a balance between the two and I do try to balance my subject matter with the presence of the object.”
Arryn Snowball, whose work in Special Moves is a video but also works in painting, drawing and photography, plays with space by constructing three-dimensional shapes out of black prism-sticks against a white background. He breaks down the solidity of the perception of an object, and plays with the temporality of representations of reality.
Leah Emery, who creates cross-stitches images of pornographic scenes, speaks of the digital aesthetics that are carried through the vintage tactility of her medium: “The pixelation of the work acts as a kind of visual filter, in the way a foggy, dirty window might in a voyeuristic context, and renders the image slightly less distinguishable when viewed close up. Almost like news censoring. But this effect diminishes as you distance yourself from the work to become crisp and acute.”
Julie Fragar explains the way human relationships and intimacy are portrayed through her painting: “You could say it’s autobiographical, but self-reflexively so. It might be more accurate to say that I am interested in human relationships, on the effect we have on each other- this also includes the artist/subject/viewer relationship.”
Special Moves considers drawing: as an act, a performance, a tactility, a starting point and an end point. It brings together six artists whose diverse ways of working intersect through the act of drawing, and creates a conversation between them in order to re-frame the importance of drawing in a digital era of contemporary art.
Special Moves opens at MOP Projects on Thursday April 18th, 6pm.
MOP Projects
18 April – 5 May 2013
Sydney
Images:
Jonathan McBurnie, Welcome to the Future, 2013, ink and correction fluid on paper, 36 x 99 cm. Courtesy the artist.
Arryn Snowball, Slow Dance, 2012, video still, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist and Heiser Gallery, Brisbane.
Christian Flynn, Unification Theory 1, 2013, acrylic on Canvas, 50 x 100cm. Courtesy the artist and Hughes Gallery, Sydney.
