Imagination takes wing

By T J McNAMARA

The choice of et al. as winner of the Walters Prize underlines how the concept of art from "found" material has gained acceptance as a means of visually expressing a concept. Another exhibition of found art from a much less-established artist is the show Forever Present, by Peter Madden at the Michael Lett Gallery until November 13.

His show does not concentrate his found objects into a large single entity as does et al.

His medium is collage and the show has a multiplicity of images, some very small.

Madden's imagination seldom flags, despite the fact that in this medium it is easy to fall into making small clever things that appear trivial.

The appropriate word for this fascinating show is not cleverness but invention. The objects go on and on from the moment you step in the door and glance down and see, just over the threshold, leather shoes made magical by the way butterflies cluster on them.

Butterflies are everywhere in this show and they carry the sense not only of beauty but also of movement and escape. A work such as Butterfly Mount is no less than a projectile of butterflies forced upwards.

While everything in the show is made of found images, the excitement lies not just in the finding but in the combination and modification of what is found. The artist is not using brush or chisel but a Stanley knife. Most of the images are cut out of paper.

A brilliant example of the possibilities is an image called Splash Mount. The basis is a photograph of a boy jumping off the back of a water buffalo in muddy water.

The original found image is notable for the shadow of the boy on the water. Madden's transformation of the image involves cutting out the outline of the boy's body and pasting the found image over a vivid cloud of red energy so that the whole gains in power and suggestion.

Such collage has many precedents, notably surrealist Max Ernst's collaged novel Une Semaine de Bonte. Ernst gave birds' heads to human figures and this ploy is used by Madden effectively in such works as Interlopercius, which is a reclining bikini-clad woman with an eagle's head.

Much of the effectiveness comes from the exactness with which the collage is fitted together. There is a similar effect in Man Interlopercine where a man carries on his back a woman with bat wings and a ferocious bear's head.

Such a style is a knife-edge. Some things do fall into the obvious and the trivial, often when they are unframed. A fly with a touch of watercolour is amusing but no more, and a woman in a bathing suit with the head of a monkey is obvious and trite.

All the objects which fascinate the artist come together in one big, stylish work mounted on a black plate in the middle of the gallery. It is called Necrolopous (sic) and is an immensely complex construction mostly in black.

At one end is a graveyard, at the other a prison camp. Between is a whole world of found images from skeletons, skulls and a mammoth to silver balls in which we see ourselves reflected, to the inevitable butterflies and big, opulent white roses.

This fascinating work is the culmination of a remarkable exhibition that repays concentrated attention.

Madden's exhibition is full of ideas that come from realistic images yoked together.

The clean, bright, exhibition by Melbourne-based artist Agneta Ekholm is also full of ideas, but they are abstract ideas about visual subtleties of layering and colour (see feature story right).

One show where things are cleverly made, not found, is Shadow Casters, work by six sculptors at the McPherson Gallery until November 13.

These three-dimensional objects include a monumental slab of steel in Cold-rolled Plate by David McCracken, interlacing systems in steel by Marte Szirmay and playful pieces you can roll on a table-top or spin on the floor by medallist Jim Wheeler.

The show introduces a new name in the dancing, rhythmic work of Samantha Lisette.