Black, April 2019
Geoff Todd & Janette Lucas Review by Ivy Ritchens
Masses of people gather, champagne in hand amongst the bleak industrial side streets of Collingwood awaiting the inaugural exhibition of Black. Ever Gallery's 'hole in the wall' industrial aesthetic, donning polished concrete floors and exposed wire lighting, now exudes a divine feminine aura birthed from the artwork of Victorian artists Geoff Todd and Janette Lucas. Black exhibits a carefully curated selection of current contemporary works and timeless pieces dating from 1991, unified by the aesthetic quality of black pigment on a natural, achromatic white surface. Varied in materiality, whether paint, charcoal or pencil, the works maintain a shared conviction in substantiating the simplistic relationship between black pigment and the artist's hand as the catalyst of creation.
With individual careers spanning four to five decades, Todd and Lucas have developed unique, distinctive oeuvres reflecting their stylistic disparities. Although, the figurative works by Todd and the geometrically abstracted works by Lucas collide in Black in perhaps a fortuitous dialogue on the feminist intervention. Todd’s Always the Audience, a large scale semi-nude woman donned in simply a sheer fabric tee shirt and boxing gloves, dominates the opening space, and not merely for its sizeable dimensions. This work appears to challenge the idealisation of the passive female nude within classic renaissance artworks, as the exposed figure powerfully reclaims the autonomy of her body from these historical perceptions. The commanding presence of the woman and the iconography of boxing paraphernalia exudes a sense of empowerment and self-determination that radiates through the collection of work.
As spectators ascend the staircase and enter the second space, the curatorial interventions appear to substantiate this contention. Viewers are met with a forbidding glare from the horned woman in Todd’s Sketch for Cow Goddess, which is situated precisely in the corner to achieve such effect. This space challenges the voyeuristic nature of the spectator in the gallery, as the fixed gaze of the women in the portraits of Peta and Waitress Singapore give the overwhelming sensation that the audience is now the spectacle.
Situated amongst the portraits, in what may initially appear a divergent juxtaposition, are the abstracted charcoal drawings by Lucas. At the core of these equivocal works are structures resembling a household chair, a motif which has appeared in Lucas’s compositions since the 1970s. She quotes, “One is always aware of the ubiquitous chair in all its various forms.” The abstraction of the chair, as an icon of female domesticity, coincides with the thematic underpinnings of Todd's feminist portraiture. Lucas’s Ladder from the Sanctuary of Nymphe, a multi-dimensional artwork, challenges the spectators gaze as they are dually drawn into, and thrust from the work in a forlorn attempt to secure a stable perspective. The monochromatic work appears to nod to the mathematically formulated work of Maurits Cornelius Esher, and his perplexing manipulation of depth perception and perspective. The structure of the chair enmeshes with the intricate line work distorting the appearance of the commodity. This perversion suggests Lucas’ feminine refutation of traditional gender roles, as the work dissembles domiciliary iconography, and forms a perspective of an expansive dimension, one beyond the domestic sphere.
Notably, the chair motif transcends merely a visual representation on the walls of the gallery, as a classic chair collection by Herman Miller, Ray and Charles Eames, and Emeco adorn the space. Todd stated, “The stainless steel, aluminium and black furniture added harmony and a link (with the art), while the coloured and wooden tones on some chairs provided an exciting contrast.”
The inclusion of designer furniture indisputably elevates the ambience of the industrial space, though spectators may ruminate whether their installation can be reduced to an act of pure aesthetics or perhaps an extension of the feminist narrative, which underpins the artworks exhibited in Black.
The chairs appear to cascade from Lucas’ canvas into the gallery. Their contemporary form disrupts the parameters of furniture design, as themes of domesticity collide with the innovative and avant-garde. The furniture epitomises a total repudiation of conformity and classicism, in dually their unique structure, and installation and arrangement within the gallery environment. The monochromatic, geometric structures form an aesthetic reminiscent of the distorted chair motif in the works by Lucas. Provoking the question, does the furniture function as an embellishment to enrich the industrial space? Or as a tangible, 'ready-made' expression of the artworks?
The installation of the chairs forms a dialogue between the gallery space and the artwork of Todd and Lucas in a coalesced contention of challenging, and destabilising the notion of the preconceived. Black exemplifies the inimitable power of the arts in forming a 'polished' rebellion. The exhibition disrupts the conventional historical narrative of women and feminine iconography within art but with a grace and elegance not to sacrifice aesthetics and beauty for gender politics.
Geoff Todd & Janette Lucas Review by Ivy Ritchens
Masses of people gather, champagne in hand amongst the bleak industrial side streets of Collingwood awaiting the inaugural exhibition of Black. Ever Gallery's 'hole in the wall' industrial aesthetic, donning polished concrete floors and exposed wire lighting, now exudes a divine feminine aura birthed from the artwork of Victorian artists Geoff Todd and Janette Lucas. Black exhibits a carefully curated selection of current contemporary works and timeless pieces dating from 1991, unified by the aesthetic quality of black pigment on a natural, achromatic white surface. Varied in materiality, whether paint, charcoal or pencil, the works maintain a shared conviction in substantiating the simplistic relationship between black pigment and the artist's hand as the catalyst of creation.
With individual careers spanning four to five decades, Todd and Lucas have developed unique, distinctive oeuvres reflecting their stylistic disparities. Although, the figurative works by Todd and the geometrically abstracted works by Lucas collide in Black in perhaps a fortuitous dialogue on the feminist intervention. Todd’s Always the Audience, a large scale semi-nude woman donned in simply a sheer fabric tee shirt and boxing gloves, dominates the opening space, and not merely for its sizeable dimensions. This work appears to challenge the idealisation of the passive female nude within classic renaissance artworks, as the exposed figure powerfully reclaims the autonomy of her body from these historical perceptions. The commanding presence of the woman and the iconography of boxing paraphernalia exudes a sense of empowerment and self-determination that radiates through the collection of work.
As spectators ascend the staircase and enter the second space, the curatorial interventions appear to substantiate this contention. Viewers are met with a forbidding glare from the horned woman in Todd’s Sketch for Cow Goddess, which is situated precisely in the corner to achieve such effect. This space challenges the voyeuristic nature of the spectator in the gallery, as the fixed gaze of the women in the portraits of Peta and Waitress Singapore give the overwhelming sensation that the audience is now the spectacle.
Situated amongst the portraits, in what may initially appear a divergent juxtaposition, are the abstracted charcoal drawings by Lucas. At the core of these equivocal works are structures resembling a household chair, a motif which has appeared in Lucas’s compositions since the 1970s. She quotes, “One is always aware of the ubiquitous chair in all its various forms.” The abstraction of the chair, as an icon of female domesticity, coincides with the thematic underpinnings of Todd's feminist portraiture. Lucas’s Ladder from the Sanctuary of Nymphe, a multi-dimensional artwork, challenges the spectators gaze as they are dually drawn into, and thrust from the work in a forlorn attempt to secure a stable perspective. The monochromatic work appears to nod to the mathematically formulated work of Maurits Cornelius Esher, and his perplexing manipulation of depth perception and perspective. The structure of the chair enmeshes with the intricate line work distorting the appearance of the commodity. This perversion suggests Lucas’ feminine refutation of traditional gender roles, as the work dissembles domiciliary iconography, and forms a perspective of an expansive dimension, one beyond the domestic sphere.
Notably, the chair motif transcends merely a visual representation on the walls of the gallery, as a classic chair collection by Herman Miller, Ray and Charles Eames, and Emeco adorn the space. Todd stated, “The stainless steel, aluminium and black furniture added harmony and a link (with the art), while the coloured and wooden tones on some chairs provided an exciting contrast.”
The inclusion of designer furniture indisputably elevates the ambience of the industrial space, though spectators may ruminate whether their installation can be reduced to an act of pure aesthetics or perhaps an extension of the feminist narrative, which underpins the artworks exhibited in Black.
The chairs appear to cascade from Lucas’ canvas into the gallery. Their contemporary form disrupts the parameters of furniture design, as themes of domesticity collide with the innovative and avant-garde. The furniture epitomises a total repudiation of conformity and classicism, in dually their unique structure, and installation and arrangement within the gallery environment. The monochromatic, geometric structures form an aesthetic reminiscent of the distorted chair motif in the works by Lucas. Provoking the question, does the furniture function as an embellishment to enrich the industrial space? Or as a tangible, 'ready-made' expression of the artworks?
The installation of the chairs forms a dialogue between the gallery space and the artwork of Todd and Lucas in a coalesced contention of challenging, and destabilising the notion of the preconceived. Black exemplifies the inimitable power of the arts in forming a 'polished' rebellion. The exhibition disrupts the conventional historical narrative of women and feminine iconography within art but with a grace and elegance not to sacrifice aesthetics and beauty for gender politics.
