Work for Tired Eyes
Work for Tired Eyes (Bomb), 2010
acrylic on double magazine page
370 x 530mm
collection of the artist
Work for Tired Eyes
The works in this recent and ongoing series, which originated in 2009, are comprised of sheets of found printed material - magazines, catalogues, posters, etc - overpainted with high-sheen black acrylic paint. Made to be seen in ambient daylight and not under fixture lighting, they are simply presented, pinned to the wall alone or in constellations.
Economical in process and spare in picturing, Work for Tired Eyes is concerned with a form of figuration that appears subsumed (or, perhaps, consumed). Here, presence is evidenced not through illustration but in the cavities, bulges, and rippled fields of the sheet - these features being indexes of the overpainted and lost imagery of the page and its reaction with (absorbing), and to (repelling), the all-covering black medium.
The viewing of these works is not straightforward, but troubled by the optical instability created in the interplay of shifting light and viewer position in relation to the undulated surface of the sheet. And contingency marks the discernment of an image in these otherwise-monochromes, especially with the 'figures in the landscape' subset of works.
Two large groups of the Work for Tired Eyes were exhibited in the 2010 group shows It happened that, ST Paul St. Gallery, Auckland, and Still Vast Reserves: II, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne.
Work for Tired Eyes (figures in the landscape)
installation view It happened that, AUT, Auckland 2010
----------
Links to Work for Tired Eyes pages on the website:
Work for Tired Eyes (figures in the landscape), 2010
acrylic on magazine page
approximately 310 x 210mm
collection of the artist