Out Of the Chaos 111
Mair Gallery, COCA Christchurch September 23rd - October 12th, 2003
|
Circe Invidiosa (J.W Waterhouse 1892). Oil on canvas 622x 1081. 2003. |
Dance (Primavera, Botticelli, 1478). Oil on loose canvas. 1340 x 1990. 2003. |
|
Chaos
III is a continuation of the theme of chaos in relation to the
shifting narratives of visual images within western culture.
The current show explores the ways in which reality is woven
into the structure of visual language. The artist uses
pre-existing images from art historical texts and photographs
from newspapers, and places them in the context of the western
tradition of painting.
She is interested in using the European craft of painting to explore ideas of harmony, chaos and language. Notions of the global, colonial and historical, and the way in which these constructs move through time and space is explored. |
|
Linda James has worked as a practicing artist in New
Zealand for the last twenty-five years and has exhibited widely
throughout New Zealand. She received a Creative New Zealand
grant in 2003, and has been a recipient of the Olivia Spencer
Bower Art Award, as well as being a runner up in the VISA Gold
Art Award. Linda also participated in the Artists in the
Sub-Antarctic Scheme. In 2002 Linda was Artist in Residence at
Avonside Girls High School in Christchurch. Key exhibition
projects have included Out Of the Chaos 11 at the Centre for
Contemporary Art, Christchurch in 2002, Disegno Interno at the
Robert McDougall Art Gallery in 1996 (which toured to the
Judith Anderson Gallery, Auckland and the Jonathan Jensen
Gallery, Christchurch), and Narrative of War: Drawing
Installation at the Rangiora Public Art Gallery in 1999. An article by Emma Bugden about Linda's most recent work can be found in the Art New Zealand Journal. Spring Issue 2003.
|
|
The
artist locates herself within current theories regarding
representation and historical art practice, while remaining
aware of the huge history and traditions of the painting
medium. This approach is innovative in that it draws on the
craft of painting to interrogate its construction. This
approach is of particular significance in a post- colonial
society such as New Zealand, because it acknowledges the
history that Europeans brought to a Pacific country, while also
raising critical questions concerning its significance.
The process of using pre-existing images drawn from contemporary newspapers, books and reproductions of well known paintings enables the artist to explore the links between traditional modes of painting and contemporary hybrid arts practices such as appropriation, installation, and post-structural analyses of the visual image. |
|
<< Out of the Chaos- Disaster I. (Pentagon. Washington USA 2001 Reuters). Oil on loose canvas 1350 x 1830. 2003. The paintings I have drawn on depict images of chaos, conflict and harmony. The photographs I have used are images depicting contemporary scenes of international conflict. Alongside these are paintings that use photographs taken from local newspapers of individuals. The paintings that I am drawing on comprise images of dance and themes of war and conflict.The installation is designed to generate a visual, intellectual and emotional interest in the juxtaposed components, both individually and in relation to each other. Deconstructing the nature of systems we use to live in the world provides a venue to expose their inherent instability. On one hand interrogating images of chaos can show the ways in which structures carry within themselves the nature of their own collapse. Simultaneously the rhythmical structure of chaos can also be seen as dangerously harmonious. The artist has an interest in exploring the structural fragility of our present point in time. |