Artists
ANDY WEAR
CAZ RODWELL
ANDREW HARPER
3 into 1, 2007
Date: 30-Jun-2007 – 22-Jul-2007
Location: Contemporary Art Tasmania
CAST’s annual 3 into 1 format is one in which the gallery is divided into three discrete exhibition spaces to allow three emerging artists a chance to present a solo exhibition. Although independent from one another, the three artist’s work are chosen carefully, giving consideration to complementary themes. This years’ group consists of artists wryly exploring big, dark concepts.
ANDREW HARPER – A THOUSAND PARDONS
Working himself up into an apologetic frenzy, Andrew Harper’s latest performance video combines current political and social apathy with a personal sense of guilt. In this tragicomic solo performance of Harper chanting ‘sorry’ repeatedly, the implication is that such sources of public shame infect and damage us personally. In his catalogue statement he pleads: I want to apologise to the future for not fixing it. I want someone to beg for forgiveness for Australia’s human rights record. Insert your own here. Do you follow? I do not want to tell you. You already know.
CAZ RODWELL – ABSENCE AND SOLITUDE
The transgressive writings of Georges Bataille are the inspiration for Caz Rodwell’s recent composite mixed media works. Their fragmented composition and painterly extravagance suggest a metaphorical correlation to carnal violence and horror, echoing Bataille’s jaundiced view on the absurdity of the human condition. This is dark and difficult territory in which a yearning for a loss of self is sought in an ecstatic state that frees the individual from rational constraints.
ANDY WEAR – THE HONORABLE SENATOR
In this exhibition Andy Wear expresses the difficulty of straddling both the fields of painting and writing. By combining words with paint the different responses to the two are brought to our attention. As a PhD student of political science as well as an artist, Wear is concerned with the deficiencies of contemporary writing used in, not only the double-speak of politicians but also within the art field: Gormless politicians and their political advisors shape ‘politik-speak’ to make the clear opaque, seemingly only in the hope of bedazzling the electorate into disinterest. It feels like wherever I turn – to speak, to hear, to write, to read – I just don’t know what people are on about.
Catalogue: Andrew Harper, A Thousand Pardons