Spectrumfigure IX, Summer

Oil on Belgian linen

190 x 150 cm

THIS IS A SHELTER
Olsen Gallery, Sydney, 30 May-24 June, 2018

Amalgamating digital imagery, traditional painting techniques, and charcoal drawings, This is Shelter explores visuality and the concerns of the contemporary body in a digital and diasporic age. The exhibition title refers to the psychological shelter we may construct in order to augment human values in the technological epoch, such as craft, care and empathy.

Spectrumfigures, a series of 7 abstract paintings, is the culmination of over 10 years of experimentation in digital media. Inspired by the relationship between technology and the body, the abstract works feature digital composites of thousands of images pulled from the web, which are algorithmically distilled into a formless abstract of colour and then intricately hand-painted onto the canvas. Spectrumfigures reinvests a source imagery of rainbows and colour spectrums onto fine linen; resulting in works that are marked by a luminous palette and delicate human brushwork.