URL > IRL: 2023 brings to life some of the most magical, neoteric and unexpected artworks from Artereal Gallery’s 2023 online exhibition program. See them ‘in real life’ at Artereal Gallery.

Exhibition Opening Event: Saturday 2 December from 2 – 5 pm.

Exhibiting artists:

Max Lawrence White
Hyun-Hee Lee
Owen Leong
Jess MacNeil
Jiaxin Nong
Ebony Russell
Kerrie Satava
Elwira Skowronska

Control, constraint, colour and gesture are what grounds the works within this exhibition. The selected works include a wide range of mediums and styles. Conventional paintings on canvas and board are placed alongside more materially experimental works made from paper, silicone rubber, porcelain, rope, concrete, and bronze.

Max Lawrence White’s hard-edge geometric paintings boldly play with colour, shape, and balance. Created from the reworking of previous paintings, White methodically cut and sliced, rearranged and organised each shape and strip imposing a single rule – that all compositions within the series comprise of nine vertical strips. By contrast to the meticulous and orderly paintings of White, Jiaxin Nong and Kerrie Satava both employ strong gestural mark making within their paintings where an exploration of intuition, chance and the unconscious is apparent.

Throughout Hyun-Hee Lee’s practice, Lee re-contextualises traditional Buddhist religious rituals and Korean cultural practises within a contemporary context through the processes of making her work and the materials which she employs. Lee’s Prayer #19 evolved from a series of repetitious and orderly steps; writing prayers and wishes onto Korean hanji paper, then neatly folding each piece so that the text was obscured from view. Notwithstanding the orderly manner and controlled processes of preparing the hanji paper, the final composition is explosively gestural and tightly encompassing.

Elwira Skowronska’s control is apparent in her painting Eclipse 5, wherein Skowronska’s meticulous pointillist painting style is paired with gold leaf creating the illusion of a seemingly endless projection of shimmering gold. However, the expansive and dynamic field of the painting is boxed in and constrained within the material parameters of the square canvas and Perspex box frame.

Owen Leong uses personal mythologies and queer aesthetics to explore power and control, and to reframe and re-imagine masculinities and intimacies throughout his practice. Leong’s sculptural works Sweet Spot and Control Release, playfully and pointedly speak of the body and specific pleasure interactions where control and constraint are inextricably linked through his selection of intimate objects incorporated into the works. Leong’s concrete and gypsum assemblage Debris 1 was created from a cycle of destruction and creation with the intention to impose a new system of order from chaos. Reminiscent of ancient stone tablets, the work is a culmination of a variety of considered fragments and objects, personal, intimate, and found – debris from Leong’s personal life – thoughtfully arranged and cemented in place.

The selected works by Ebony Russell in this exhibition are a golden blur, gestural and reminiscent of a twirling skirt, glittering and joyful to look at from afar. The uniform gold that encases the works is both alluring and captivating while simultaneously it subtly obscures the deeper message within. The works are created using Russell’s refined piping technique, combined with the moulds of ballerinas. Upon closer inspection the works appear somewhat sinister as a ballerina’s face, foot, or arm emerges ­– the ballerinas have been disembodied, chopped into pieces, and interspersed. Fused eternally through the firing processes. These works present a moment in time that is reflective and somewhat nostalgic of the realisation and discovery of the falsity of storybook tales and fantasies.

Jess MacNeil’s practice is characterised by a crossover of control and happenstance and elements of reveal and conceal. Unbodied Lattice, 51 William Street is the outcome from an architectural intervention. The final work emerged from MacNeil’s mark-making as she traced the intersecting outline of a shopfront buildings’ grout lined tiled facade using brightly coloured silicone rubber. The vivid pink, orange and purple silicone rubber, now set and removed from the site, hangs slack and is stretched to create new shapes and forms. Here MacNeil follows her intuition and the silicone’s inherent materiality, loosening and constraining the material until the desired arrangements are conceived.

Exhibition curated by Felicity Brading and Kelly Price
Curatorial text by Felicity Brading

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