Liam Fallon, Transmission, Gallery 1; Gerald Jones, From here to there, in-between places, I am many thoughts, Gallery 2; Ellen Shields, Still, Gallery 3. M16 Artspace, 21 Blaxland Crescent, Griffith. Until May 16, 2021.
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COVID-19's invidious presence has permeated all aspects of our lives. Of the three exhibitions currently at M16 Artspace, two make overt connections between their art and COVID-19, while the other's introspective pictorial musings hint at the possibilities of self-reflection in a time when that "luxury" became commonplace.
Thematically, Liam Fallon's Transmission "explores the construction of narrative through the usually overlooked elements of suburbia". Each of the 12 images speaks of the artist's repeated relooking at familiar elements populating his daily peregrinations during the geographic restrictions of COVID-19. I found it difficult to discern what narrative the artist might be intending to convey. Certainly the ordinariness of his subject matter (each work clearly titled to reinforce that ordinariness) gives connection through the 12 works. That connection presents as a form of visual diary; a record of the artist walking through his immediate environment and visually noting gutters, bricks, pot plants, safety reflectors, etcetera; objects/things normally overlooked.
The works are each given generous amounts of space such that their perceived insignificance in the greater scheme of things is subverted and a different significance is invested in them. Visually though there is a flatness to the work; an overlooking of the spaces in which objects exist. This flattening is disconcerting and while it may be a deliberate formal ploy on the artist's part, it detracted from individual pictorial resolution and the overall effect of the exhibition.
Ellen Shields' Still is the result of "the insular yet chaotic experience (of) COVID-19". The 21 oil paintings consist of still-lifes of fruit and vegetables, and a lesser number of landscapes. The still-life images are usually of fruits (variously peaches, lemons, apples, pears), singular or grouped. There is throughout the work a troubling inconsistency in the artist's playing with closely delineated depictions and more inchoate depictions of forms. Some of her fruit is hyperreal; others far removed from the actuality of the object it aspires to depict. The inclusion of a number of freely painted and abstracted landscapes offers stark contrasts to the still-life images, and quietly inserts the underlying theme of the possibilities of the coexistence of the macrocosm and microcosm, of restriction and freedom.
In Gallery 2 Gerald Jones's very personally titled From here to there, in-between places, I am many thoughts, is an embracing installation of 59 works. The first work, The in-between, consists of 51 oil panels, each 25x20 centimetres. The panels are grouped into three lines of 17 works. Each panel is aesthetically autonomous but simultaneously plays an integral role in the overall resolution of the work. In the text accompanying the exhibition, Jones speaks of the "personal language of the hidden self within these canvases", and in many ways "the in-between" can be read as a form of self-portrait in which the self is never disclosed but rather examined by the artist making the work. The thoughts, feelings, emotions generated as one goes through self-examination are visually expressed through the painterly gestures and marks that populate each of the panels. Intimations of heads and buildings emerge but are subsumed into the overall explosion of layered pictorial activity that moves the viewer through and across each panel and through the 51 in combination. This is a commanding work, physically, aesthetically and emotionally.
The use of layering is particularly visually effective throughout this exhibition. Jones uses this aesthetic tactic as a metaphor for his search for both painterly and personal identity. The inclusion of various abstracted forms, gestures and marks clothed within a luminous palette of lime greens, yellows and pinks invokes a form of internal pictorial interrogation; a metaphor for the artist's self-questioning. The inclusion of words, often barely discernible but graspingly present, posits hidden or opaque meanings. There is immense energy throughout the exhibition and the elision of form and content actively sought and aesthetically achieved.