Tricky Walsh makes use of a range of diverse media (architecture, painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, sound, film, comics, radio) – each fashioned and dictated by an imminent concept, with communication and space playing an important role.
Tricky Walsh, Momentum deferred, 2017, acrylic on canvas, 152 x 122cm
For this exhibition Walsh has created a series of artworks or ‘worlds’ that communicate the spatial language of geometry through the materiality of paint and wood. Whilst there is an impression that these artworks are accidental occurrences, meticulous planning – a process the artist refers to as ‘directing the mess until it forms its own messy logic and language’ – is involved. It would be more accurate to define Walsh’s role as a director of both the process and the audience’s gaze. The artist says:
‘Some things are certain. Some other things are not remotely certain. Somewhere in-between those two states is the void of possibility and I revel in its unproven-ness.’
It is this state of being in-between that the artworks are a testimony to; a balance between careful planning and research juxtaposed beside chaos. In fact Walsh does not perceive the chaos as a mere accident, ‘everything (including the mess) was part of the plan all along,’ says the artist. It is the carefully constructed balance between structured geometric order and so called mess, not to mention colour and form, that is so visually striking about this exhibition. In the process Walsh generates her own conceptual language, referring to the term ‘worldline’ to describe the path, which an object traces through space and time. In this way, the work communicates the meeting of time, space, colour and light. Walsh’s series for this exhibition is definitely anything but mundane both in terms of the artist’s insights and how this has been expressed in visual terms.
Bett Gallery
Until 2 February, 2018
Tasmania
