This exhibition, titled Painting territory, evolved from two individual research projects that each examined ways of visualising and representing territory.
One project explored the picturing of feeling in local territory, and the other considered the role of the commonplace object in understandings of territoriality. The resulting new project is a collaboration that has resulted in a visual conversation that aims to focus the spaces and objects in familiar territories through painterly expression and the use of surface.
The paintings depict the delineation of territory encountered in their daily lives, isolating motifs from the cacophony of visual experience, and re-establishing them in a new context. Bollards, packaging, scaffolding and barriers all point to the temporal nature and instability of our urban environment. They are man-made fragments, often removed from their backdrops, which causes the viewer to pause and ponder the significance of objects that attempt to enclose or ward off – often through the symbolic power of their presence rather than their actual structure.
Nicole Slatter's painterly touch and subdued palette are evident in many works. Bruce Slatter is better known for his sculptural works, attention to detail and sense of humour. It makes for a powerful combination. Although one artist's touch may appear to predominate in an artwork, they emphasise that they are to be equally credited in each piece, because: "All creative research and production for Painting territory has been discussed and executed in collaboration."
[Artists statement]
As Tim Gregory noted, "Collaboration is key to understanding their work. They are not an example of artistic duos whose collaboration generates Women's Weekly intrigue into disputes over authorship, love and separation... Slatter and Slatter's practice is more complex, revealing co-mixtures of micro and macro forces that structure their art... their collaboration represents a necessity that is born of a struggle to find the time, space and security to work... What should be restrictions on their creative output has instead produced a series of paintings which are remarkably direct in their instability [note the temporary bollards, crashmats, bunting, scaffolding]. The mundane instability of their creative existence is rawly expressed. Their paintings are disconcerting, compositionally fragmented and darkly comedic... This is painting of and for now. This is temporary painting. But isn't that precisely the horror of the condition of contemporary existence - we have made the temporary permanent?" [Exhibition essay extracts, July 2016]
Both Bruce Slatter and Nicole Slatter have extensive exhibition and education histories - that often overlap. They studied at Curtin University in the 1990s, undertook a Master of Arts there in the early 2000s, and completed a PhD at RMIT in 2015. They also have works in several public collections - as individuals. Nicole has work in the Geraldton Regional Art Gallery, University of WA Library, King Edward Memorial Hospital, Royal Perth Hospital, and Curtin University. Bruce's artworks can be found in the collections of the Art Gallery of WA, Artbank, Bankwest, Woollahra City Council, RMIT University, and Curtin University. He won the 2014 Bankwest Art Prize, 2007 Sculpture by the Sea, and the 2004 Woollhara Small Sculpture Prize.
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