OPENLY DREAMT - Q & A with artist Greg MacLaughlin

Conceptual art can be a more challenging genre of contemporary art, but it shouldn't be. On April 15th we open our latest exhibition with conceptual/minimalist artist Greg MacLaughlin. In an effort to expose Greg's practice and give people a deeper insight into his sensational work, we have put together a little question and answer session with Greg that we invite you to read. Please enjoy ;-): [caption id="attachment_14784" align="alignleft" width="480"]inward smile preview INWARD SMILE - GICLEE PRINT EDITION OF 50[/caption]

Q: Minimalism is deceivingly simple and I would like to ask you a little about your process. Some of the simplest designs in reality & in digital environments tend to arise from complex arrangements of basic building blocks. I see conceptual parallels with your own work. What tools do you utilize to arrive at these deceivingly simple compositions, or in other words what are your building blocks?

A: You are right to say that minimalism is deceptive, and I think that you are pointing in the right direction by looking for the building blocks.  I spent a lot of time looking for the building blocks of my own work, at first I thought they’d be the key to something.  What I’ve learn overtime is that finding a block only gets you a block, you have to have a plan to start getting somewhere.  So, my most essential tool isn’t a thing, it is the plan.

Q: I see a connection in your work to conceptual artists like Sol Lewitt, in the sense that your actual work isn’t a physical object rather a manifestation of a plan or in your case code. The resulting image can then be made into an object through print that can then be scaled and created on demand. Would you consider yourself a conceptual artist & whom would you say have been your biggest creative influencers?

A: Definitely, but I am someone who has fought, kicked and screamed as I have become a conceptual artist.   I didn’t want to become the artist I have, but I like what I am doing now.  It is a bit of a strange place to be but it isn’t that unusual I think.  We artists and creatives like to think that we control the flow of our work, but we don’t always.  My work started to get better when I lost control, when I stopped worrying about the work and instead focused on the plan and process that could make it possible.  The thing about conceptual art and especially artists like Sol Lewitt is that the instructions tend to look beyond a singular object or image.  There isn’t anything special about writing down the instructions to build a cube but if you put down the instructions to have it built in such and such a response to it’s surrounding or form, then the magic starts to happen.

I have a short list, a long list and a very short list of influencers.  I’ll give you my very short list; Imi Knoebel and Ellsworth Kelly.  They are artists I’ve been inspired and humbled by countless times.  

Q: I have had some people describe your work as 2 dimensional. The print is 2D with an element of spatial illusion in the composition, but considering that your work exists digitally, in print and also as a 3D object (say as a rug), I would say that the work is very multi dimensional. How would you respond to the 2D comment?

A: The work is solidly 2 dimensional, but it pushes at the boundaries of 3 dimensionality.  The element or hint of spatial illusion is where my work energizes.  The illusion of space or depth is a simple but really powerful part of the design and I rely on it heavily.  Even as 3D objects the designs tend to remain flat until the illusion of space is created by the viewers perception of depth, be it through shape, form or color.

[caption id="attachment_12773" align="alignleft" width="480"]Dreamily Recognized, 2014. Print by Greg MacLaughlin DREAMILY RECOGNIZED - GICLEE PRINT EDITION OF 50[/caption]  

Q: Lately I have seen a shift in your work away from strictly rigid geometric forms into more organic shapes. I love the contrast and connection between the two. Are the organic forms created using the same programming techniques as the more rigid geometric compositions?

A: All of the shapes and patterns are the results of programming.  The organic shapes emerged naturally, all be it surprisingly from much the same process it took to draw the linear geometric forms.  The organic shapes happened one day when I was staring at a collage by Hans Arp, thinking about the undulating bulbous shapes and I realized that many of them are just circles and ovals that have subtly changing radii.   When I described it like that writing a program to draw organic shapes was actually pretty simple.  The key is learning how to describe what you are seeing.

Q: I particularly enjoy seeing fluid organic shapes like that in the Contemptuous Picturesque being constructed from tiny geometric, or rule based forms. I relate it to the true nature of intelligent life, a deceivingly complex, ‘free thinking’ organic structure that is actually the result of complex arrangements of inanimate particles; the illusive concept of mass and the indefinable soul. There seems to be a metaphysical element to your latest work that I find very intriguing. Is this something that you are thinking about?

A: Meaning has a way of sneaking into pure abstraction, regardless of whether we want it there or not.  I like that it does and I try to encourage the shapes and compositions to sort of embody an aura of insightfulness.  Sometimes this results in a hollow work that is has no deeper meaning. It cynically stands reminding us to question our desire for meaning.  At other times, like with the Contemptuous Picturesque, I try to build upon elusive deep feelings and create a work that can fill a void.  

Q: What direction are you steering toward in your work and where do you see your work heading in the future?

A: I wish it were that I was steering my work, just as I wish I were steering my life.  Loosely though what I am working on is continuing a daily practice of creating, it is almost a meditation for me.  And I have several artist zine, ideas that I’d like see happen. As well I am looking for more opportunities to do design work, the collaboration with Gibbon Group and TWFineArt has been amazing.

[caption id="attachment_14783" align="alignleft" width="480"]GM-058 THEY ARE WEARISOME - GICLEE PRINT EDITION OF 50[/caption]

Q: I think one major thing I missed out is how the element of improvisation & chance enters your work. I think the other questions seem all about formula…

A: That is a great follow up, because I create work with computer code I think that some people might have the misconception that what I do is very calculated and formulaic.  The reality though is that improvisation and chance are core parts of process.  As to improvisation, the process of writing a program to draw something starts with observation. The way organic shapes found a way into the work is much the way everything has come into it.  I look for algorithmic descriptions of patterns, shapes and colors in the world around me. I am looking for things that I can improvise on, then I throw together a program, normally in a flurry of activity, that creates variations on it.  Now to chance--chance comes down to how the programs are written and used, if I want a pattern what I do is use my program to cycle through a bunch of randomly generated patterns until I find one that is doing something interesting.  

   

ART IN THE DIGITAL AGE: My City Life

It's that time again, with the latest edition of My City Life hitting the news stands this week. Such a pleasure writing for these guys, presenting new ideas in art and visual culture. We are living in a rapidly changing world with technology evolving at a rate never experienced before thanks to digital advances. They say it's only going to get faster until we hit the Singularity, at which point artificial intelligence will surpass that of the human. How are artists and their art adapting to this new digital world? It's no longer something of science fiction, it is happening around us as we speak, but are we ready?
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URBAN LIST MELBOURNE - Top Places to Buy Art Online

Thanks so much to the Urban List Melbourne for the great endorsement of TWFINEART. The chic online shoppers guide just published their Top Picks for Buying Art Online and included us on the list. We are so happy to be included! Big thank you to their Melbourne editor Pip for the inclusion! Screen Shot 2015-03-21 at 3.00.07 PM Screen Shot 2015-03-21 at 2.59.53 PM

Marie Claire Up Late & Entangled on James Street

Last Thursday night we premiered our collaborative project with Queensland Ballet dancers Jack Lister, Sarah Thompson & artists Gert Geyer & Greg Henderson. Marie Claire Up Late on James Street in Fortitude Valley saw a celebration of all things fashion and to activate the street, we projected Entangled onto the the blank canvas of the Scanlan Theodore store. Passers by were treated to a wall of moving contemporary art that illuminated the neighborhood. The production was created by a fantastic group of talented, dedicated and visionary individuals who combined forces to create a work of art that fused ballet, film and digital art into one pretty spectacular, moving artwork. Art for the 21st Century! _H_L4184 _H_L4198 _H_L4218 _H_L4281 _H_L4345    

Vanishing Point - Making Waves by Matt Sheridan

Matt Sheridan is finally back in Los Angeles after his residency in Japan with a massive body of innovative new work under his belt. Sheridan has been lighting up Japan with his paintings in motion for the past few months and has received some well deserved critical acclaim for his latest 21st century multi media projects.

Click on the below link to see some footage from Sheridan's installments in Tokyo and around Japan. We are currently exhibiting Vanishing Point in the gallery, come on in and check out this artists amazing work in person!

http://vimeo.com/121738914

Vanishing Point (Make Waves) (2015)

Catherine Harrington, curatorial intern at MOT (Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art) recently published this fantastic piece on the artist and his work:

Matt Sheridan: keeping the colours / taking out the words It's the last stop before Narita airport and I’m one of the few passengers remaining as the train pulls into Shimosa-manzaki station. Through the windows, an architectural phantasm is cast in shifting patterns of coloured light. Although by going to see the new projections by Los Angeles-based artist Matt Sheridan I’m expecting a light show (in the dark), the scale of the glowing spectacle in this vacated location is unexpectedly enticing. Contrasted against a blackened horizon of rice fields, the affects on other spectators is tangible; cars stop; drivers lose track of the road - so effectively do the flashing lights colonise their ‘attention’. Yet I’m also reminded how far this pastoral scene contrasts with one of the sites (or sights) that informs Sheridan’s projections; Times Square. Formerly a New Yorker, Sheridan recalls how he navigated Times Square at night, taking in the glare. He’d walk up close to the billboards and experience the text distorted and over-sized so that the words were no longer legible. “I wanted to keep the colours but take out the words” he reflects. A hint at a political gesture? The long history of public provocations in Times Square such as Jenny Holzer’s provocative “statements” or Ryoji Ikeda’s “test pattern” interferences at night may come to mind. Yet these works clearly operate as interventions. Sheridan, like his chimeric visuals, has more mercurial intent. For Sheridan may be as much influenced by fashion design and music as by Times Square, and seems to embrace buildings in the same way certain New York parties in the 1980s may have re-shaped Seventh Avenue. Sheridan is most interested in movement. For him, even oil paintings are already in his words, “moving” through colour and gesture, with the desire to expand “participants’ movements directly toward, across and into the paintings.” “Painting-in-motion” is how he describes his practice. His use of public space is not site-specific but site-reactive. “As long as the painting activates or transforms the room [or building] it’s successful,” he states. Beginning with ritually painted marks which are then digitised, he forms collages and sequences. These collages are animated and matched to a gridded architectural support “like making a garment” so that the final projections fit the target surface or building. For Sheridan – though mediated, these remain paintings. It is unsurprising then that he cites Wade Guyton as a key influence, whose “paintings” are typographics or found images that he prints through an ink-jet printer. His gesture of ‘pressing print’ has been compared to Pollock’s ‘drip’. In its delimitations, Guyton's outcomes have a clarity despite the uncertain results (paper jams, ink shortages, paper sizing). Sheridan's gesture of 'projection' however, seems more oblique, particularly in a public arena in which - in Foucault-Debordian terms - we are so aggressively commodified and controlled by flickering images. These are not new sites of contestation of course - for similar sites have been embattled with Holzer's counter-didactic “billboards”. But then, Sheridan does not intend to project- in-conflict or project-as-pastiche. Instead, VJ'd and metamorphosing, dressing buildings and walls, his projections appear and disappear in sync, silently accompanied by an expressive 'wooooow' or a muted Iron Man's 'whoooosh' . And in Narita, spectators 'making shapes' in the shadows of the projector, seem to concur. Viewing Sheridan’s projections in the context of Tokyo, a friend later compared them to Hanabi (“fireworks”) – an association Sheridan may not contest, but likely celebrate. Catherine Harrington, 2015