Saturday, October 30, 2010

The World At Large: Solo Exhibition > Gilligan Grant Gallery. 2010




(note: click on images to enlarge)


January. The World At Large
mixed media on canvas
H 87cm x W 112cm



February. The Fear
mixed media on canvas
H 87cm x W 112cm
March. Beautiful Way
mixed media on canvas
H 87cm x W 112cm


April. Headache
mixed media on canvas
H 87cm x W 112cm


May. Trouble In Mind
mixed media on canvas
H 87cm x W 112cm

June. The Lady Don't Mind
mixed media on canvas
H 87cm x W 112cm
July. Grace Kelly Blues
mixed media on canvas
H 87cm x W 112cm


August. Bang On
mixed media on canvas
H 87cm x W 112cm



September. Save Me
mixed media on canvas
H 87cm x W 112cm



October. Asleep And Dreaming
mixed media on canvas
H 87cm x W 112cm


November. Come Into My Sleep
mixed media on canvas
H 87cm x W 112cm
December. Beginning To See The Light
mixed media on canvas
H 87cm x W 112cm



Essay By Aden Rolfe.Any two objects placed in an appropriate space develop a connection. They influence each other, talk amongst themselves, tell a story. ‘The World At Large’ explores the relationship between image and narrative, between the personal and the general, the real and the fictional. The twelve diptychs – corresponding to the twelve months of a year – depict a variety of characters and creatures alongside everyday objects and abstract elements. Taking their cues from world events, song lyrics and the artist’s life, the works are fragmentary and suggestive, leaving the viewer to unravel the oblique meanings that might be found there.

For ‘The World At Large’ Price has created a series of strange and humorous scenes that place the representational alongside the conceptual. Faces, animals and shapes are made strong and dark against flat beige backgrounds. Figures are out-of-proportion and in distorted perspectives. Each panel is rendered by pencil, oilstick, paint and collage, and is essentially a drawing on a canvas. The result is a fragmented world that seems to extend beyond the frame: a realm of select objects, a textured limbo. In the negative space the elements breathe. They develop relationships both tacit and overt, provoking questions and advancing the plot.

The energy in Price’s work is created by juxtaposition: from individual elements interacting within the frame; from each panel speaking to its pair; and from the works talking across the sequence. The eye is drawn around the canvas to follow the entangled hair of its subjects, the moth emerging from a character’s stomach, the apocalyptic gaze of a magpie. By the lines connecting various parts of a work a story starts to unfold, but it’s a story that’s neither fixed nor explained. Instead it expands as the images recur elsewhere, popping up in different works where they relate to different characters and different objects. The narrative is open-ended and conversational, part of an incomplete whole.

‘The World At Large’ playfully interprets the human condition, measuring the months while rendering chaos into tight images - making sense and non-sense from the flow of daily information. It reconfigures the public and the personal into a world at once meaningful and absurd, unreal and yet strikingly familiar. It’s a world that asks you to follow the lines and join the dots, to read your own story into the sequence. A world where meaning is made in collaboration with the viewer, and the interplay of narrative and image invites your interpretation to round out the tale.


4 comments:

  1. Ahmarnya, your work is amazing! Yet another reason why I can't wait 'til we move to Melbourne next year... so we can come to your exhibitions and admire your artworks in person! So beautiful and inspiring and dark and surreal. I'm totally blown away. Hooray for you! Hi from London anyhoo! xbrenna

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  2. This remains one of my favourite exhibitions ever. Such richness in the imagery.. and the connections running through all the works. Thanks so much for sharing the images here on your blog.

    You sold all the pieces didn't you?

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