Richard Burgoyne, abstract and analytical thinking.
Richard Burgoyne, abstract and analytical thinking.
Sub Rosa and EXODUS is a collaborative exhibition featuring two artists' work at Hangar Gallery in Whangārei.
The exhibition by Lindsay Marks and Richard Burgoyne showcases well defined art practices in two completely different mediums that visually complement each other.
Lindsay Marks' extensive career includes lecturing, graphic design, musician/musical instrumentmaker and artist.
For Sub Rosa, Marks has utilised his skills as a luthier to create a collection of boutique boxes with precious remnants from instrument making. There are a variety of beautiful timbers and found objects incorporated into the finished pieces.
The boxes open to display tiny compartments and drawers, not only intriguing for their exquisite craftsmanship and attention to detail but also for what they could contain — love letters, a pebble from a favourite beach, old photos or a lock of hair.
Sub Rosa: ''Intriguing for their exquisite craftsmanship and attention to detail but also for what they could contain.'' Photos / Supplied
The space within is as important as the external appearance. There are many instances where a remnant is the catalyst for the construction, such as the name plate from a deconstructed hall piano.
Attention to detail is a strong element, an ebony strip inlaid with rosewood or birdseye maple, finely crafted dovetails, or inlays, skills harking back to an earlier age.
Richard Burgoyne is a painter and youth worker, with an aesthetic understanding of the geometric subliminal. His multi-faceted paintings are precise blocks of primary colours with an emphasis on the exact.
Hours of painstaking research and experimentation have led him to a striking sequence of abstract artworks that showcase the components of his analytical visual thought process.
Working typically with geometric forms Burgoyne has built cross shaped or square canvases. There is a shift in the colour sequence which doesn't seem obvious, but after careful observation each item becomes manifestly singular. Careful consideration is required by the viewer to contemplate the depth of the work.
Shifts in the colour sequence don't seem obvious but each item is manifestly singular.
Burgoyne's subtle transformation of the colour sequencing and precise paint handling acknowledges an experimental era in art, the harder edge of abstract expressionism.
There is a medative prose for the work, a harmonic "ode" to the abstract expressionists and the singular vision of their defiant work. The paintings seek and find a full stop. It is about practice and process through to a carefully articulated and stripped away two dimensional surface, strong, and bright. There! A visual exclamation mark!
Strangely enough, there are core values shared by Marks and Burgoyne. Both resonate upon ordered and understood geometric constructs, with crosses, hexagons, trapezoids and stars — connecting the craftsman's hands and intuition to sacred geometry.
Sub Rosa and EXODUS, September 20-October 20 @Hangar Art Gallery, 14 Cross St Whangārei. Artists' talk at Hangar Gallery, 10am Saturday, October 5.
