Phoenix Brighton

'FLOOR PLAN'

In the North Gallery

5 Sept – 11 Oct 2009

Wed - Sun 11am - 5pm

Lousie Bristow

Peter Bobby

Rosalind Davis

Rowena Easton and Mark C Hewitt

Rich White

Preview: Fri 4 Sept 6 – 8 pm

Floor Plan explores buildings, architecture, and the physical, aesthetic, and psychological interactions between these structures, their inhabitants, and the surrounding communities.

Louise Bristow makes gouache paintings based on arrangements of objects that are reminiscent of stage sets. She combines photographs and found images, three-dimensional models of real or imagined buildings, and architectural details to create paintings that suggest an illusive narrative. She is inspired by everyday things and how they can embody larger ideas: graffiti on a street wall expresses one person's political dissent, whereas the design and imagery of a tiny postage stamp can encapsulate an entire nation's ruling ideology.

Peter Bobby’s photographs present us with carefully constructed, luminous images that intentionally tread a fine line between, art, architectural photography and corporate image making. These architectural settings often play upon and raise interesting questions around notions of power, fantasy, illusion, theatre, performance and visual seduction. The ‘Gallery’ series looks specifically at contemporary commercial gallery spaces and questions their relationship with established notions of the ‘White Cube’ as a timeless and neutral space for the contemplation of art.

Rosalind Davis presents us with complex and dystopian landscapes which carry a romantic and melancholy undercurrent. Utilising painting, collage and embroidery, she seeks out structures in areas of social deprivation that may initially seem hostile or neglected, yet which serve a vital function to the individuals and groups connected to them. In addressing these often overlooked pockets of the urban landscape, she discovers the fragility and tenderness underlying the city’s façade, and creates portraits of buildings which reflect their more human aspects.

Artist Rowena Easton and writer Mark C Hewitt revisit architecture through an improbable doorway in the middle of the night. Drawing upon an ever expanding archive of people’s dreams, this collaborative duo explores human relations with the built environment, using the building as a symbol of the body and self. The installation presents us with ‘sprawling dream texts, lost objects, suspect interventions, misleading indicators, intimations of the labyrinth, and recollections of the uncanny.’

Jane Ward’s meticulously constructed works employ digital photographs which have been repeatedly broken down and collaged, creating images of imaginary, fragmentary, and transient landscapes. Printed onto canvas, the ink is dissolved and manipulated by hand, leaving traces of earlier forms and injecting the works with a sense of memory and the passage of time. These cityscapes, villages, rural and industrial settings are both familiar and disturbing as they allude to the cycles of destruction and regeneration witnessed in our everyday surroundings.

Rich White draws upon the unique history of Wellesley House, the building now occupied by Phoenix Brighton. Inspired by the story of 89 year old Harriet Sylvester, who occupied a house previously situated on the site, the artist resurrects the memory of this notable occupant in an architectural intervention using reclaimed and found materials from the vicinity. In the process he draws out a narrative that evokes the collective consciousness of the building; a visual reference that seeks to provoke thoughts about the location and its history.

Exhibition Review ('Interface', Micheal O'Connell)

Jane Ward