Plexus

Will Cooke, Ham Darroch, Annelies Jahn, Lieutenant + Vassallo, Katy Mutton, Nadia Odlum, Britt Salt.

Plexus is a group show of Australian artists who work with geometric abstraction and spatial intervention. These ‘process-based’ abstractionists each use self-designed systems to generate their artworks. Deriving from the Latin ‘to braid’, the title refers to an intricate system or network of parts. This term could refer to the intricacies in each individual’s art making. In bringing this group of artists together, their creative systems will interweave creating a larger ‘plexus’. The artists in Plexus could be described as ‘process-based’ abstractionists. Using repetitious and laborious actions to create artworks, they share an interest in geometry and spatial intervention.

These artists have an intense devotion to their self-designed ‘systems of making’. Each has been slowly developed over years and years of studio-based research, constantly making and refining the smallest of details. These systems are a sophisticated, highly intricate and maybe even unnecessarily elaborate way to generate their final artworks. It is a process that is unseen to the public, but one that is a necessity for these artworks to exist. In bringing artists together that share such a detailed approach to art making, viewers will be reminded of the often-unbelievable lengths artists go to in making their artworks.

While the systems used to make these artworks highlight artistic labour, the end product is far from a show of personal expression. The intimacy of the time spent sweating it out in the studio is, for the most part, hidden by the polished finish of these artworks. They are Post Minimalist and mechanical, cool and detached, shiny and clean. This tension between the creation and finish of the work becomes a focus of the exhibition. In a way, it echoes a similar tension evident in contemporary life. It is like the coldness of scrolling through social media on your smart-phone, connecting with your loved ones through the endless cold interfaces.

The artworks in Plexus range from large-scale, site-responsive installation, to more traditional sculptural and wall hanging pieces. Bringing these artworks together, each the product of its own unique and laborious system, implies a larger network of creative production to be decoded by visitors. Initially the immersive space has been designed to slow down viewers, inviting them to take a closer look at these artworks and decipher the systems behind them. You have to get up close to look for the subtle presence of the artists hand in these artworks.

Curator | Kate Vassallo

Image | Nadia Odlum, Our separate ways, study I, II, & III, 2018, gouache on paper, 21 x 15 cm each | Courtesy the artist.