Image: Sam Songailo, Untitled, 2016
Painting, 265mm x 265mm.
Acrylic on board
Photo courtesy of the artist 2016
Dirt Road
Caleb Shea & Sam Songailo
The artists will present a suite of new paintings (Songailo) and sculptures (Shea). The exhibition is an investigation into the contemporary predicament of art making and the dilemmas an artist faces when trying to construct legitimacy within their practice. The show is a sardonic take on the artist as hero or myth maker and wry look at the art object as revered artefact or physical embodiment of that myth. Shea and Songailo posit the exhibition as a hard edged geometric tragedy played out in high gloss and incandescent hues.
Form, line and phenomenology occupy central positions in Caleb Shea’s work, where transcendental geometric abstraction and blunt simplicity meet in a newly charged revision of the late-modernist sculptural tradition. His neo-formalist sculptural investigations combine with modes of experiential spatial configurations to celebrate a return to sincerity and romance of form. Recent exhibitions include: Melbourne Now (NGV), XTYO (Utopian Slumps), The Paesents are Revolting (Heide museum of modern art)
Sam Songailo’s hard edged works are rich in opticality and often rendered high key in colours. Drawing from depictions of the virtual, his paintings reveal a world in equilibrium. Depicting elusive forms that fluctuate into and out of focus his work is typified by a refusal to settle into an easy visual reading. Songailo’s practice predominantly revolves around painting and frequently lends itself to large-scale murals, installation and sculpture. Recent exhibitions include: Guided Meditation (firstdraft), More images (hugo michell gallery), Zen Garden (fontanelle), Digital Wasteland (Contemporary art Centre of South Australia)
Photos by Docqment
MOP Projects is supported by the NSW Government through Arts NSW