Rapid mash-ups of colour and line as well as a palpable sense of gusto distinguish Troy Mendham’s paintings.
As a painter-turned-image maker working through contemporary Abstraction, his new solo exhibition I WISH I COULD KEEP LIKING THIS AND YOU WOULD GET TONNES OF LIKES BC I JUST WANNA LOOK AT THIS 4 EVA!!!! sees Mendham progress his exploration of new ways in which audiences are engaging with Abstraction in both physical and virtual arenas.
As the exhibition’s title suggests, Mendham’s practice as a painter encompasses that of the avid instagrammer or online content creator who uploads imagery for online exchange; approximating aesthetic value with mass receivership. Mendham’s engagement with the perpetual image stream of the screen follows on from his ‘Ambush Exhibiting’ series where he distributed his paintings in various public locations for audiences to find, document and re-appropriate as techno images using smartphones.
Most intriguing about Mendham’s new series is how he presents a contemporary situation for abstraction whereby the painterly gesture has virtual sensitivities towards compressions, transposition, and simulated impressions. Yet, by their physically defined presence in the gallery, Mendham dually acknowledges the genre’s history and current evolvement, the consumption of its rendering, and how these split sensibilities are integral to the future of the artistic practice.
James Bowen, 2014
Fort Delta
Showing posts with label Words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Words. Show all posts
September 02, 2014
July 20, 2012
Un:sighted
There is no
conscious intervention, it’s happening. Thought ends, instincts take over. In
‘the zone’ the line dictates itself, becomes the feeling. It’s not seeking to
explain the nature of existence, nor is it an expression of a moment, a
time or a place. It’s that split second in
between thoughts, a provoking wave of energy channeled through the nervous
system, which pulses and spans the full
gamut of human emotion. Chi laid bare.
Not precious, imperfection is sort and
encouraged. Hesitation, indecision and weakness give way to fleeting waves of courage and urgency, suddenly, there!
…windows open and new possibilities become evident.
Troy Mendham, Unsighted catalogue 2012
Un:sighted Catalogue essay
Often the question asked about abstract work is where does it come from?
Meaning is so embedded in representation, what can be seen is often associated with what can be known. Art that doesn’t represent anything and only sometimes resembles something we have seen before makes us question our experience. Abstraction generates meaning ahead of naming and posits other means of knowing the world, not as outline or form, equivalence or concept. In thinking about why artists make art and how we engage with it, we also consider why we choose to live the way we do, our mutual relationships and the ways we inhabit and construct our world.
Un:Sighted. The exhibition title alludes to the difficulty of terms; non-representative, reductive, non-objective, non-relational, unconstructed, non-compositional… and to the myriad pathways of abstraction. It suggests an interest in the limits of the visual, and refers to a kind of blindness in historical writing about abstraction in Australian art.
In a way, abstraction cannot be defined. It is not a ‘thing’ to be surrounded or reflected by words. It is a hybrid, in which no one consistent approach or attitude prevails. There is no single history of abstraction, and no fixed inheritance. What these artists have in common with the history of what we call abstract art is the belief that it is not the job of the artist to represent things. They share a desire to address the wholeness of experience; its complexity, fluidity and multivalence.
The concept of the abstract and its creative principles are deployed in various ways in their work. Their practices are founded on a critical relationship to materiality, process and formal structure. Drawing on different models of art practice, each of these approaches exists in the context of the histories and precedents with which they dialogue.
The work is about time and gesture, elaboration and exactitude; the thinking in the making and the process of discovery that happens within the limits of each given practice. Principles of order and chaos are explored, as are the physical and philosophical conditions of making. There is a fascination with the bounded form as well as the unbounded; with the physical reality and the idea of a colour; with the quality of attention and how we experience change.
Instances, intensities, frequencies… thoughts, systems and subjectivities… These are enunciative practices in which abstraction develops itself within its own order for itself. In the gaps where logic is unanticipatable and artists have allowed things to happen, elements of chance, spontaneity, doubt and interference become an intrinsic part of the language. These artists are revising and expanding ideas of making and how we project meaning onto experience. Theirs is a fluent relation to process ‘drawn in an indirect way from both the imagined and concrete… the passage of life into language. The real that is abstraction.’ (1)
....
So where does the work come from?
In a way it doesn’t matter. It is more interesting to see and feel where the work goes, how it behaves, what it is thinking and how we choose to engage.
Martina Copley, 2012
(1) [Endnote: Catherine De Zegher, ‘Drawn to you’, Whitney Biennial 2004, exhibition catalogue, 2004.]
Meaning is so embedded in representation, what can be seen is often associated with what can be known. Art that doesn’t represent anything and only sometimes resembles something we have seen before makes us question our experience. Abstraction generates meaning ahead of naming and posits other means of knowing the world, not as outline or form, equivalence or concept. In thinking about why artists make art and how we engage with it, we also consider why we choose to live the way we do, our mutual relationships and the ways we inhabit and construct our world.
Un:Sighted. The exhibition title alludes to the difficulty of terms; non-representative, reductive, non-objective, non-relational, unconstructed, non-compositional… and to the myriad pathways of abstraction. It suggests an interest in the limits of the visual, and refers to a kind of blindness in historical writing about abstraction in Australian art.
In a way, abstraction cannot be defined. It is not a ‘thing’ to be surrounded or reflected by words. It is a hybrid, in which no one consistent approach or attitude prevails. There is no single history of abstraction, and no fixed inheritance. What these artists have in common with the history of what we call abstract art is the belief that it is not the job of the artist to represent things. They share a desire to address the wholeness of experience; its complexity, fluidity and multivalence.
The concept of the abstract and its creative principles are deployed in various ways in their work. Their practices are founded on a critical relationship to materiality, process and formal structure. Drawing on different models of art practice, each of these approaches exists in the context of the histories and precedents with which they dialogue.
The work is about time and gesture, elaboration and exactitude; the thinking in the making and the process of discovery that happens within the limits of each given practice. Principles of order and chaos are explored, as are the physical and philosophical conditions of making. There is a fascination with the bounded form as well as the unbounded; with the physical reality and the idea of a colour; with the quality of attention and how we experience change.
Instances, intensities, frequencies… thoughts, systems and subjectivities… These are enunciative practices in which abstraction develops itself within its own order for itself. In the gaps where logic is unanticipatable and artists have allowed things to happen, elements of chance, spontaneity, doubt and interference become an intrinsic part of the language. These artists are revising and expanding ideas of making and how we project meaning onto experience. Theirs is a fluent relation to process ‘drawn in an indirect way from both the imagined and concrete… the passage of life into language. The real that is abstraction.’ (1)
....
So where does the work come from?
In a way it doesn’t matter. It is more interesting to see and feel where the work goes, how it behaves, what it is thinking and how we choose to engage.
Martina Copley, 2012
(1) [Endnote: Catherine De Zegher, ‘Drawn to you’, Whitney Biennial 2004, exhibition catalogue, 2004.]
July 06, 2012
FUCK DEATH LETS RIDE
Fuck death, lets ride.
16.16 x 13.26. Pen & ink on paper.
Faster, faster Faster! until the thrill of speed dissolves the fear. A thump in the groin, a buzz in the head, a big grin on the face. Oh yeah, this is what it is. Two full sketch books, two days straight drawing. A few hundred sketches by the end of it. Forced to choose I bin the rest and pick one. Suddenly the status has changed to that of the exalted, finished work. The wild seed becomes the exotic flower.
Troy Mendham Published in Drawing Paper #5, April 2012.
December 12, 2011
From The Neck Up
 |
| Be brave/Fear everything, mixed media |
Each year Smart Alec Hatters in Fitzroy invites a group of contemporary visual artists and designers to transform hats into works of art.
"Last year we did the panama," Smart Alec's Michael Albert says, "and the results were rather painterly. This time, with top hats, there's a real Dada spirit at work."
Artist Troy Mendham set himself the task of destroying the pristine sample provided by Smart Alec.
"I wasn't concerned with keeping the functionality of the hat although you can still wear it. I wanted to obscure the underlying hat structure beneath a layer of wrapped plastic. The hat's been cut and made much higher, with crudely constructed extenders and electrical tape. The whole thing is addorned with grotty fabric, painted roadside barrier plastic and fishing floats, with an end result that is quite rediculouse really. It looks like you’re wearing someone's garbage, which is just the effect I was after. From a gentleman to a tramp all in the name of fashion."
Other artists included: Lu Skacej, David Thomas with Sonny Thomas, Nicholas Jones, Mandy Toniolo, Henry Maas and Louise Blyton.
July 20, 2011
There is no conception
There is no conception, only spontaneity. A game is played. One of obsession with line, detail, the potential for wrong turns and the anxiety of error. Lost in the wilderness, riding the anxious wave of intuitive creative inspiration. For an all too brief moment, when all's going well, there is no time, no space, no place not even a self.
Troy Mendham, St Michaels Archangel Art Prize, Catalogue 2011
Troy Mendham, St Michaels Archangel Art Prize, Catalogue 2011
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