Document Type

Creative Work

Publication Details

Van Den Berg, J. G. & Gibson, R. (2004). Conversation #1 / Pacific Exhibition part of Sydney Biennale 2004 Sydney : The Cross Arts Projects.

Link to exhibition website here.

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RESEARCH IMPACT STATEMENT

Research Background
The research for the 4 suites of paintings is centred around the notion that a person who paints finds formal restraints, both in terms of the historical significance of abstraction as in the contemporary re-emergence of the narrative structures in the processes of painting.

Research Contribution
This exhibition, a collaborative project with Professor Ross Gibson (University of Technology Sydney), was a part of the Parallel Program of the Biennale of Sydney, On Reason and Emotion, curated by Isabel Carlos and supported by Craig Judd. The exhibition comprised my paintings of the ocean's horizon-line and Gibson's looped film containing footage of a highly ambiguous encounter between indigenous and incursive people on a Torres Strait Island in the early years of the Twentieth Century. The scale of the work and the return to domestic size painting emphasises the need to bring the work out of the public space into the environment where a painting functions as an anchor for everyday relations, ebb and flow.

Research Significance
The importance of this body of work lies in the fact that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Four painters collaborated through one artist, questioning the expectations of artists who work in this genre and who focus on the conversational, the anecdotal and lack of style in order to create a less hierarchical structure. The exhibition was selected as a part of the satellite program of the international program of the Biennale of Sydney 2004 at Cross Art Projects, including a # Conversation between the artists.

ANZSRC / FoR Code

1905 VISUAL ARTS AND CRAFTS

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