Artists

MARCUS TATTON

JJ VOSS

DAMIEN BAUMGARTNER

Date: 05-Aug-2006 – 03-Sep-2006

Location: Contemporary Art Tasmania

CAST’s annual 3 into 1 exhibition sees the gallery divided into three spaces in order to give emerging artists the chance to develop a solo exhibition.

CAST Gallery proudly presents three solo exhibitions by Tasmanian artists JJ Voss, Marcus Tatton and Damien Baumgartner all who deal with the impact of human activity in the Tasmanian natural environment.

JJ VOSS – THE ANTI-SUBLIME: WILDERNESS, PORTRAITURE AND THE GROTESQUE

Voss is well known for his unauthorised and somewhat alarming photographic portraits of politicians and public figures. In this new work, he turns the camera on himself as he stands, front and centre, to block our view of magnificent and awe inspiring landscapes behind. The resulting photographs are funny, strange and uncomfortable – grotesque indeed. These images suck all the power of out of tourism advertisements and remind us that the reality of our appearance is hilariously strange, and our relationship to these landscapes can only ever be from the outside: we can only ever block the view.

DAMIEN BAUMGARTNER – ROAD RIVER ZONE AFTERMATHS

These paintings explore the scenes of road-carnage that run along the edges of our roads, but Baumgartner gets down low and his vantage point places us in the position of the victim. Everything is epic. These paintings express a story of life and death on the highway and exude overtones of great American road movies and the potential for misadventure if we hitchhike alone.

MARCUS TATTON – THE WREAKAGE PRINCIPLE

Marcus Tatton’s dark vision for the future of the planet propels the political aspect of his art. These works express the artist’s assertion that forestry practice in Tasmania uses ‘production methods … to treat the landscape with ‘off the machine’ systems of technical ease.’ Many of his sculptures are composed and made in the industrial wastelands of Tasmanian forestry coupes, places where he camps for significant lengths of time to work.