Philip Barlow at the Obert
Maritzburg-born, Zimbabwean raised, World traveller and now Cape Town resident, sublime visual artist Philip Barlow exhibits at the fabulous Obert Contemporary gallery at Melrose Arch this October. Don’t miss it. 28 sept to 12 oct 2008 featuring six variously scaled oil on canvas works, barlow continues to explore the realm of light and its origins. this highly anticipated solo exhibition follows the artist’s previous sell-out shows at obert contemporary in 2004 and 2006. o b e r t c o n t e m p o r a r y at melrose arch: 11am to 7pm daily (011) 684...
Connor Cullinan at Obert Contemporary
We do our best to post cultural, entertainment and artistic events that bring vibrancy and value to your free time. Quality. So believe us when we say, lovers of art, get to the Obert Contemporary in the next two weeks for…..: connor cullinan: carne vale. 14-30 august 2008. obert contemporary is pleased to present ‘carne vale’ by connor cullinan from 14-30 august 2008. michael smith, the managing editor of artthrob, has written the following review of cullinan’s latest exhibition: ‘making a painting is usually less like building up a whole from a series of base units as much as it is about throwing everything you know and everything you’ve seen at a surface: layering, praying, falling apart and then layering some more. connor cullinan’s works quietly challenge this impulse. their evolution seems almost sculptural, in that the final image is achieved exactly through a process of unit-based construction, with lines, diamond shapes, rectangles and elements of pattern. the systematic process the works require for their production engenders a contemplative reading of their aesthetics and ideas. they ask the viewer for time and consideration rather than a gut response. in fact, the trope of ‘system’ underscores all of cullinan’s images: their grids, matrices and repetitions reverberate with a sense of some sort of metaphysical pattern or design. yet frequently the images rendered within these systems pull against them, and in a cautionary tone seem to speculate about how far from this order humanity has strayed. cullinan frequently works from media images, newspaper and magazine pictures. these operate as starting points for his exploration of ideas that fit into his conceptual framework. this is true of all ten of the paintings in the show ‘Carne Vale’. the show’s content addresses this notion of ‘carne vale’, an italian phrase for ‘farewell to flesh’. in contemporary english the phrase has morphed into ‘carnival’, but cullinan’s works refer to its designation as a pre-lenten festival during which indulgence is tolerated in preparation for lent’s asceticism. he works with the idea that the current social climate of excess and self-indulgence is a signal of future limitations on these things, as if humanity is playing out an ancient cycle of feast and famine on a grand scale. his formal approach thus seems entirely appropriate for this conceptual terrain, eschewing as it does painterly excess and surplus gestures. possession is a case in point: the picture of a man with arms raised, crying out, is composed of a series of jagged striations which recall a disturbed bridget riley canvas. yet even in this, the show’s most immediately emotive image, violence is muted by methodical construction. in ‘host’,...
We will be back!
