clive barstow
tomorrow is history
28 july - 26 august 2017
artist talk:
3pm saturday 29 july
Clive Barstow's exhibition, Tomorrow is History, has central themes of time and place, and cultural and historical representation.
He acknowledges that the notion that you can position yourself in time, looking forward and backward in a linear, chronological structure is very much a traditional western idea that perhaps "no longer represents the complexities of our shifting and dynamic hybrid communities". The disjointedness of colliding cultures, the fascination of the past and its recycling into the present, is represented in a series of jigsaw artworks, in which jigsaws are remade, joined with mismatched partners forming awkward and ill-fitting intersections between cultural groups. Disney characters can be found romping through Arcadian landscapes, accompanied by a Geisha girl, as the landscape unfolds to include Uluru surrounded by the Great Wall of China. (Entering Anarcadia 2015) Thematically, these jigsaws also represent Barstow's interests in different cultural groups; Australian, British and Chinese.
A new series of ready-made sculptural forms continue Barstow's interest in cultural hybridity and intersecting found objects to form new narratives and playful new interpretations. They link to the jigsaw works with their cultural clashes, such as the Disney characters riding the kangaroo in Crow-Ded (2017). An even more direct link in this artwork is the jigsaw pieces held in the mouths of the black crows, duck and owl. Are we cultural thieves? The title of the work is printed across two desk tops, on an old school desk mounted to the wall upside down, perhaps referring to our crowded schools, or our overcrowded world. Is the inversion a reference to Australia, the land down-under? His artworks intrigue the viewer, raising as many questions as they answer, often with an unsettling and humorous outlook. As Dr Nicola Kaye notes, "Barstow plays the role of trickster, and invites us, his audience, into a complex world of play, metaphor, irony and interrogation". (The Trialectical Model of the Trickster, catalogue essay, 2017).
Clive Barstow is Professor of Creative Arts and Executive Dean of Arts & Humanities at Edith Cowan University, Honorary Professor of Art at the University of Shanghai Science & Technology China and global faculty member of Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey USA. He is a practicing artist and writer, and was trained as a sculptor and printmaker at the University of the Arts London (Chelsea School of Art) under Sir Eduardo Paolozzi. Clive's exhibition profile includes forty years of international exhibitions, artist residencies and publications in Europe, America, Asia and Australia. His work is held in a number of collections, including the Musse National d'Art Modern Pompidou Centre Paris and the British Council USA. He is Vice President of the Australian Council of Deans & Directors of Creative Arts (DDCA) and Director of the Open Bite Australia Print Workshop.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- TURNER GALLERIES | showcasing contemporary art
at 470 WILLIAM STREET NORTHBRIDGE WESTERN AUSTRALIA 6003 - TURNER GALLERIES HAS NOW CLOSED.
This website is an archived record of the exhibitions and artwork shown at the gallery. - Turner Galleries acknowledges the Whadjuk Nyoongar people as the Traditional Owners of the lands and waters where Turner Galleries is situated, and pay our respect to Elders past, present and emerging.
- Website © 2000-2024 TURNER GALLERIES. All images are © the artists and are not to be used without permission.
- This is a millapede project.
