Having just read the article of Jack Marx in the Sydney Morning Herald I was extremely interested then find the follow up from The Art Life (You Be The Attorney, I'll Drive, 19/07/2007). No punches pulled, and no quarter given for 'artistic license'. This blog could learn a thing or two from this creative think tank!
But onto more important things. The subject matter of the above article is Jason Benjamin, an Australian artist of particular renown worldwide. His latest exhibition, 'Set Yourself Free' is now showing at metro 5 Gallery (http://www.metro5gallery.com.au/) until July 8. For those of you in Victoria, you're all very lucky people.
For years a Benjamin work sat above the headstand of my bed. The work was so epic it almost needed the white cotton of the bed sheet to act as a visual buffer for wayward glances, a risk that could mean total immersion and subsequent loss within the image.
This painting was of his established style; a landscape both hyper-real and trying so hard to be surreal but somehow casting off the preconception of surreality. It was a snapshot of what I wanted to feel but it would always force me to stop before I made quick assumptions about the subject matter. It demanded that I take nothing for granted.
It was painted in the very sudden throes of a storm, the greens and blues so dark as to be immediately thought of as black. The cloudscape sat amongst all of this aggression with an omniscient softness, the clouds tearing and revealing incandescent blues. All of it just teetered in some catastrophic brink, perfectly balanced but ready to fall into tragedy at a moment's notice. Somehow some amazing 'force majeure' had been ground to a staggering halt just beyond the head of my bed.
Get along and see it, from the poor reproductions available (like the one included here - 'Please Don't Go You Just Got Here', Kyoto 2007 - from the Metro 5 website) I can see that this exhibition is amongst his best.
1 comment:
Thanks for writing this.
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