Artist
DENIS BEAUBOIS
A complex collapse
Date: 10-Jul-2010 – 08-Aug-2010
Location: Contemporary Art Tasmania
A solo exhibition of new work by Sydney-based media artist Denis Beaubois.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT:
The title, A complex collapse, refers to the process where complex molecules are broken down into simpler forms during the practice of fermentation.
The exhibition investigates numerous processes of change, including the way substances, people or thoughts, transform imperceptibly over time. It explores and imagines the loss of control that comes from a gradual molecular change, that occurs within sealed fermenting bodies, and documents the tension between what bubbles away under the surface and what remains unchanged on the exterior.
The works are derived from my attempts to brew beer between 2009 and 2010. During this period I found that the brewing process referenced and sometimes generated a wide array of ideas that I had explored in earlier works (I understand that this is a common phenomenon amongst home brewers).
Subsequently over three separate brews I have created a series of works that use the brewing process as a platform to revisit the themes of immigration and nationalism, whilst also working with new ideas of masculinity, fermentation and opacity, which all stem from the brewing process.