c is for circumspect

With this painting I am a finalist in the biannual Bendigo Art Award 2017 (Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize), on show at the Bendigo Art Gallery from June to September 2017.

Oil on Canvas, 101 x 101 cm, full image.

This artwork is part of my alphabet series “Re:Cursive” (main series: “Scripted”). Original alphabets were pictographs. In that sense my work is situated within an ancient tradition. It is not, however, a homage or dead repetition. Rather, it subversively re-animates the ancient codes to enable precise and incisive comment on current cultural dilemmas.

Like the other artworks in this series, it shows the repetition of a letter and the resulting patterns. The letter of this oil painting is ‘c’, the text is “circumspect”, literally “look around”, a veiled suggestion not to take anything—least of all the alphabet—at face value.

I submitted this artwork, together with “a is for arresting” to the Bendigo Painting Prize 2017 and was selected as finalist. For the exhibition at the Bendigo Art Gallery, June to September 2017, I chose this piece.

Please find the full artist statement for the series “Re:Cursive” in the artwork section, with the painting “a is for arresting.”