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The
West Australian - WEEKENDEXTRA
Saturday 2 June 2007 Page 13
Visual Arts
Ric Spencer
At Galerie Dusseldorf, Tom Muller's work also engages with a
type of whimsy but in the paradigm of misguided
utopian visions and nationalistic pride.
Expedition, in the back half of the gallery, at fIrst seems
a mishmash of imagery but, like his Heraldic Animals, the works
have a sense of common purpose. The animals I refer to are a
procession of creatures all taken from coats of arms, all resplendent
in pageantry regalia and all off on a jaunt, relishing their
freedom from the pressures of their political role.
Worked in a number of Photoshopped layers, this is a pertinent
piece that belies its own humour. Similarly, in International
Fables 1-12, a number ofinkjet prints of dragons, white swans
and the like tell a tale of human misappropriation of the animal
image. The animals question the artificial relationship we have
with this universe, highlighted by our need to use emblematic
imagery to map it.
Also showing at Galerie Dusseldorf is the work of one of its
directors, Douglas Sheerer. Sensorium works well with Muller's
Expedition, critiquing in this case the emblematic nature of
art itself with particular reference to the sanctuary space
between a painting and its viewer.
Sensorium is constructions, paintings and holograms all articulated
in such a way as to develop with the assistance of the viewer.
His large hinged works, with titles like Articulation 10 x 5
W and Articulation 5 x 5 BLAC, offer an imaginative and manual
response to developing an art system that varies a work, depending
on viewer engagement, from simple to complex, minimal to hyper-coloured
and from visible to invisible.
His CD stacks or Digital Information System Colour Stacks are
the pick. The compact discs have been painted over and over
in a way that completely negates their intentioned use but in
doing so instigates a new relationship between the object and
a different light-based technology - the eye.
Also in town is the Art on the Move exhibition, Hotspot, which
is in the temporary exhibitions gallery at the WA Museum. For
Hotspot curators Annette Davis and Shaaron du Bignon asked artists
and artist groups from the Great Southern to respond to this
area being internationally recognised as a Biodiversity Hotspot.
The show has been travelling for over a year now so the works
may seem a bit old to the artists involved but I found much
of it still fresh and engaging..
Joan May Campbell's time lapse digital prints and Barbie Greenshield's
shoes are excellent works as are the pinhole camera photos of
Ian Weir. This series of images, taken by a camera obscura built
on location by Weir, shows the farming community in.a different
light and, like Sheerer's work, question the visual origin of
that very same light.
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Tom Muller and Douglas Sheerer are at Galerie Dusseldorf, Mosman
Park, until June 10; Hotspot is at the WA Museum, Perth, until
tomorrow.
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