We just added a series of new work in limited edition print by Brisbane artist and design aficionado Gert Geyer. After seeing these pieces up on the wall, I couldn't escape the reference to a painting that I love by Charles Demuth 'I saw the figure 5 in gold' 1928. Demuth was a leader of the modernist movement called Precisionism and a group of artists known as the Immaculates. It is believed that the style was coined Precisionism by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) founder and director Alfred H Barr due to the clean edge forms and painterly precision. Subjects mainly included industrial landscapes and the movement is commonly associated with that subject matter, however the artists were not so keen on this pigeon hole believing that nature was an essential part of their work. 'I saw the figure 5 in gold' was inspired by a poem written by William Carlos Willams and my connection with Geyer's new work goes beyond its aesthetic precision to the actual inspiration and subject of the work, which is essentially the poetry of the environment (both urban and natural) being reduced to its absolute minimum form. The manner in which Geyer works, from collage to digital, achieves a level of precision that the Immaculates could really only dream of achieving through paint. Her work in my opinion realizes their goal more completely. It is an exciting retake & homage to a somewhat forgotten movement that is almost 100 years old.

---

  [caption id="attachment_14364" align="alignleft" width="517"] I saw the figure 5 in Gold - Charles Demuth 1928[/caption]  

Among the rain

and lights

I saw the figure 5

in gold

on a red

firetruck

moving

tense

unheeded

to gong clangs

siren howls

and wheels rumbling

through the dark city

[caption id="attachment_14224" align="alignright" width="800"] Flame Trees, 2015. Limited Edition Print by Gert Geyer[/caption]

Written by