Redfern Gallery 1976 please click on the icons above and the 'live' text below to navigate the site
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Redfern Gallery 1976 please click on the icons above and the 'live' text below to navigate the site
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Improbable sculptures and objects for casting off into space
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`Reconstruction of a famous work' (Object for casting off into space) 68 x 102 acrylic 1976 (Collection of Helen and Philip Jessup) |
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This exhibition of paintings combined three distinct strands of interest I had in sculptural and architectural ideas. Some works contain an irony that I found difficult to keep in check, perhaps because of my previous involvement in parody in my last Redfern exhibition. I have a profound interest in 3 dimensions but mistrust the easy reality achieved through a solid form and this is at the root of these paintings. |
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Improbable sculptures |
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The `improbable sculptures' came out of a trip I made, at the invitation of the artist Norman Lundin, to drive from Seattle to Chicago via San Francisco along Highway 101 and Route 66. At the time I was very interested in the work of artists such as Robert Smithson. The expansive landscapes of America encountered on this journey made me want to make some work that incorporated the excitement and strangeness of this Jack Kerouac `on the road' experience. |
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My interest in the conceptual aspect of art, which seemed to me to be at the heart of a painters' problem informed these works. Whatever concept I had, the problem was to conjure an adequate form. Paint exposes the inadequacy of the imagination, the intellect and the practical skill in an unforgiving way I could see why so many artists had abandoned painting at that time in favour of similarly illusive works experienced through film, documentary photographs, lists, maps, the shadow of a stick against a wall and the like. The banality of gravity had sculptors distancing themselves from the monumental in favour of the occasional or chance work. Objects were out. Artists went on walks with cameras, tape measures and a theodalite. The ensuing works, in their documentary form, were disseminated world-wide in a sort of procession through the press: much the same as Duccios' Madonna was processed through the streets of Siena. It seemed that the documentation was the primary objectification: the object documented only the means to this end. It seemed to me that the experience of `reality' in the documentation was as if the original objectification had never existed. The photograph had become the object. This was amusing to me: photographs have little `object value' and this was the sculptors point. I came to conceive that a painting, also without much `object value', of an un-realisable sculptural object would have an economical advantage. Although I enjoyed the primary poetic and romantic nature of these works I felt uncomfortable about the huge financial and logistical requirement that some of these `Land Art' works incurred. I still do, but events have shown me to be a little naοf in the sphere of events that have come to characterise the art world we know today. My painters' problem was to avoid the topographical, to contain surrealism and fantasy to render the conceived object to make its coming into existence pointless. I later had a strange experience flying over Mexico when I saw plumes of smoke rising from sites of slash and burn farming that had little vapour clouds nestling in their tops. My works with smoke and clouds were not so fanciful after all.
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Objects for casting off into space. The `objects for casting off into space' were concerned with the possibility of constructing objects in space that were not subject to gravity and might be set in motion forever as in the proposition of a thrown smoke canister. Objects like `curved, irregular and straight' were devices to give a clue to language in relation to objects, should some alien species ever come across them. NASA did send off some kind of plaque with exactly the same purpose. Architectural propositions. The architectural spaces were more straight forward propositions that could be carried out. I contented myself with an image of the proposition rather than setting out to draw the plans, consult an engineer and raise funds to carry them out. In retrospect I think this may have been because I knew that my temperament was not suited to the task involved in managing other people rather than any lack of desire to see them carried out. LP March 13, 2010 |
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`My house' (Object for casting off into space) 58.75 x 78.75 acrylic 1976 |
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`Uh Uh Uh hello Houston' (Objects for casting off into space) 58.75 x 78.75 acrylic 1976 |
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`Sunset somewhere' 58.75 x 78.75 acrylic 1976 (Collection of INCO Canada) |
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`Breakdown of the system' 30 x 40 acrylic 1976 (Private collection) |
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`Six pieces of interesting material' (Objects for casting off into space) 30 x 40 acrylic 1976 |
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`Curved, irregular and straight' (Objects for casting off into space) 13 x 16 acrylic 1976 (Private collection) |
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`Definition of the space' 13 x 16 acrylic 1976 |
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Big square somewhere ll' 60 x 84 acrylic 1975 |
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`My house' (Terrestrial) 58.75 x 78.75 acrylic 1976 |
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`An inexplicable suspense' 30 x 40 acrylic 1976
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`Rope piece' 30 x 40 acrylic 1972-76 |
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`At the crossroads' 30 x 40 acrylic 1976 |
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`Block restraint' 30 x 40 acrylic 1972-76 (Private collection) not listed in catalogue |
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`Three hand painted pieces' 30 x 40 acrylic 1976 |
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`Coincidence' 30 x 40 acrylic 1976 not listed in catalogue |
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Installation: main room, Redfern Gallery 1976 Paintings: left to right
`Big square somewhere ll' 60 x 84 acrylic 1975 `An inexplicable suspense' 30 x 40 acrylic 1972-74 `Reconstruction of a famous work' (object for casting off into space) 68 x 102 acrylic 1976 |
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Installation: main room, Redfern Gallery 1976
`Sunset somewhere lll' 58.75 x 78.75 acrylic 1976 (Collection of INCO Canada) |
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Installation: main room, Redfern Gallery 1976 Paintings: left to right
`Reconstruction of a famous work' (object for casting off into space) 68 x 102 acrylic 1976 `6 pieces of interesting material' (objects for casting off into space) 30 x 40 acrylic 1976 `At the crossroads' 30 x 40 acrylic 1972-76 `My house' (Terrestrial) 58.75 x 78.75 1976 |
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Installation: main room, Redfern Gallery 1976 Paintings: left to right
`An inexplicable suspense' 30 x 40 acrylic 1975 `Big square somewhere ll' 60 x 84 acrylic 1975 `Rope piece' 30 x 40 acrylic 1972-76 |
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Installation: main room, Redfern Gallery 1976
`At the crossroads' 30 x 40 acrylic 1972-76 `My house' (Terrestrial) 58.75 x 78.75 acrylic 1976 |
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