'Powerful and haunting': Boynes exhibition explores a critical issue

Alexander Boynes: Last Light. Beaver Galleries, 81 Denison Street, Deakin. Tues to Fri 10am–5pm; Sat and Sun 9am–5pm. Until Sunday September 2.

In the 14 years since graduating from the gold and silversmithing workshop at the Australian National University School of Art, Alexander Boynes has been plunged into frenetic artistic activity. There has been a spate of exhibitions, collaborative ventures and curatorial activities.

There are three features common to many of his activities. The first is the belief in new and experimental technologies; the second is the involvement with Australian Indigenous culture and with Indigenous peoples; and the third is the general conviction that art must engage with society and the challenges it faces, and it is an obligation for the artist to take an ethical stand.

Last Light consists of 15 paintings on aluminium panels plus a video installation. Boynes’ technique of work resembles the dematerialisation of the image – as if on a television screen – with the image appearing as slightly blurred and generally in palette favouring the warm yellow-orange-red-purple range of the colour spectrum. In the foreground, there is frequently a glowing image with a somewhat violent radiation-like aura offset by a dark and slightly menacing background.

Thematically, the exhibition is preoccupied by the idea that fossil fuels are choking our planet and, in Australia, they are having a devastating impact on the traditional Indigenous owners. Boynes notes in the catalogue, “This merging of landscape and industry speaks of our failure to invest in a renewable future, as coal, oil and gas extraction dominate the power industry. Meanwhile, standing in a rapidly changing environment, the figure represents both the catalyst and the casualty of these actions.”

Last Light has a slightly eerie and menacing atmosphere, where there seems to be a threat that hangs over the land, which finds tangible expression in the billowing smoke. Whereas in his earlier exhibition Boynes was concerned with calligraphic movement and an almost pulsating techno beat, here the movement is slower, more deliberate, and the prevailing mood is one of pathos.

A painting like Accelerant has the billowing smokestacks of the Hazelwood power station in the background, while hovering in the foreground is an apparition-like figure whose identity is left deliberately ambiguous. A cemetery-like monumental quiet prevails over this scene that seems to be set at sunset.

In Empty Time and Last Light, there is a similar compositional structure with spectral figures in the foreground and scenes of heavy industry in the background. The message is quite clear; fossil fuels are bad for all living creatures, including humans.

Alexander Boynes creates a powerful and haunting exhibition that engages with one of the most critical issues of our time, and one which claimed another prime ministerial scalp last week.