April 13, 2021
By Kuni Shim
Sonic Network no.18. Longchamp Boutique Omatesando Tokyo 2017
Thank
you for taking the time for the interview. Could you introduce yourself to Art
Terms Magazine readers?
I am a visual artist predominantly working in the medium of painting who
is currently based in Melbourne and have been exhibiting in Australia and
overseas for approximately 30 years.
I have a Degree in Visual Arts from the City Art Institute in Sydney
which I completed in1989 (which later became the NSW College of Fine Arts). In
1990 I completed my Post Graduate Diploma of Visual Arts at NSW university of
College of Fine Arts.
From 1991 till 1998 I was based in Sydney and I predominately exhibited
in Artist-run spaces. In 1998 I moved to Melbourne and got involved with being
a co-director of an artist-run space called Stripp Gallery. Since then, I’ve
had many exhibitions not only in Australia but also in New York. Also, in 2017
I completed a major site-specific commission for Longchamp’s Omotesando
boutique in Tokyo’s Harajuku precinct.
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Your artworks bring out optical illusions. What does your
work aim to say?
The optical illusions are there to mesmerize and create a
contemplative headspace for the viewer. The optical illusions embody my quest
for attaining the crossover between vision and sound.
My aim is to take the audience out of their usual way of
looking at the world and to impart to the audience an optimistic vision, as
well as transporting them to another dimension that doesn’t exist in the
natural world. I feel that there is
also a performative aspect to the work that is embodied by the process of
laying down thin bands of masking tape which covers every centimetre of the canvas. This imparts a physicality to the work so that when people
get up close to the painting they can feel the process that I go through by
applying the masking tape.
Sonic Current no.1. oil and acrylic on canvas 107 x 127cm 2007
Could you explain the process of
your work?
I have formulated an algorithm that mathematically
positions the centre point for each of the radiating circles that traverse my
works. This geometrical device acts as a foundation ripe for endless
improvisations and alterations, depending on where and how I position the points
on the canvas. This in itself mirrors the way a musical score is structured,
through a system of regulated intervals between notes which coalesce to form a
whole.
At first, I draw up the work using a beam compass which has
an attachment with a fine lead. This allows me to draw the concentric patterns
which create an underlying guide for the masking tape which I lay done to
define the section of the painting I am going to work on. I apply masking tape over the concentric circular drawn
line, after this I apply acrylic underpainting in some sections, and then over
paint, these acrylic sections with oil paint. I only apply paint to the small gaps
which haven’t been masked. In the current phase
of the sonic series, I usually paint two of these sections, using oil paint.
The two other sections are painted with airbrushed acrylic paint. I apply the
paint over each section with a blended atmospheric effect, this gives the
paintings another kinetic element, as well as giving the paintings a strong
emotive quality.
What
is your source of inspiration?
My inspiration comes from many
types of music but as a whole, it comes more from, in particular, genres of
electronic music such as trance music, hip hop, deep house, dubstep, Dub music
Glitch hop, and space disco.
The moire patterns which are a
prominent part of my paintings first appeared in the Reverberation series in
1996. The idea for the moire patterns came from listening to electronic trance
music in1996 at an underground dance party, which was located near my art
studio, at the time which was located in Redfern an inner-city suburb in
Sydney.
Regarding the colours in my work,
in 2003 I was strongly influenced by these high chroma complementaries that I
saw in Japan in commercial signage such as on the outside of Pachinko Parlors,
as well as graphics in magazines.
These influences are particularly evident in the painting Sonic Network
no.2 which was completed in 2006, which was exhibited in my first solo
exhibition with Gallery 9 in Sydney in 2006.
The idea of using the combination
of black and grey sections in my work, which was particularly prominent around
2014, came from looking at paintings by Edin Mieczkowski in an exhibition
titled OP art out of Ohio Anonima group, which were exhibited at the D.Wigmore
Gallery in New York in 2014.
You majored in visual arts but
you also studied at the Conservatorium of Music. When did you start to get
interested in music? And how did you come up with the idea of combining music
with art?
As a teenager in the late 1970s, I
became interested in progressive rock music, I was interested in the complexity
and improvisational nature of this music, I really liked bands such as Jethro
Tull, Yes, Gentle Giant, PFM, Cream, and Mahavishnu Orchestra. In the early
1980s I was learning how to play classical guitar and what really appealed to
me was the polyphonic nature of the instrument.
At the conservatorium occasionally I
would hear the conservatorium big band rehearsing and I would listen to it
feeling totally mesmerized. Not long after this I took up playing the
saxophone, and have since played it on occasions at events, in galleries, clubs,
and bars mainly in the context of visual artists making music, I adopted an
approach to playing that focused on the sound of the instrument in an abstract
way, not worrying about whether I was in key or not. I found this approach to
playing very liberating.
Although I was a frustrated musician
at the time I later adopted the systematic approach and logic which I learned
in music theory and applied it to composing my paintings, as well as creating
an underlying rationale to the sequence of colours that I utilized in my work.
From 1995 to 1998 I was involved with
a collective of sound and visual artists called Clan Analogue. At several of
their events, I had my images projected as the live music acts were performing,
it was at one of these events, when I saw my images projected onto people
dancing at the venue, that I realized that my paintings occupied a dimension
outside the confines of painting.
The title for the Dislocation series
(1998-2003) came from the CD release on the Zonar music label titled Dislocations.
This Zonar release came out in 1998. The unique thing about this release was
that the sound artists on the label created tracks by remixing each other’s
music. At this point in time, I came to a realization with my painting, where I
felt that I needed to remix the earlier phases of my work as I felt that I had
progressed as far I could at the time. This was similar to the Zonar recording
release which was called Dislocations. This was embodied the most by the
large-scale major works, titled Dislocation networks no.1 and 2.
In 1998 I was given tickets to a
classical music concert at the Opera House in Sydney. I was amazed by the
spectacle of the performance, and it had an overwhelming impact on me. I visualized creating
major works of art, which had the same variation in tonality and depth as
classical music, as well as being large and expansive in scale, I envisaged
moving to Melbourne and creating these paintings in a large studio space, which
is what eventually happened in 1998. The large-scale Dislocation Network and
the Sonic Network series are an embodiment of this vision.
When expressing the movement of
music, are the colors also related to it?
The colours do not specifically
relate to music, although I sometimes refer to certain colour combinations as
melodic. The colours overall are part of a kinetic experience that resembles
sound, when they are combined with other elements such as line, tone and
overall shifts which happen compositionally. The colours become one
component of a number of factors in my work, that interact to create the
movement which evokes sound and music.
It would feel great when hearing
is reflected well into the visual medium as you planned. On the other hand, you
may have had a hard time or felt frustrated when you couldn’t express it as you
wanted. What was the most difficult thing while working on it?
I don’t have any problems imposing
a sense of hearing or sound in my paintings that are created in my work as a
consequence of implementing a systematic process. This enables me to
employ consistency in the work, where there isn’t a premeditated effort for me
to impose a sense of sound in my work.
If I didn’t do this my work would
be too self-conscious and would look contrived. By implementing a
systematic approach in laying down the masking tape over the rest of the
painting, I am not able to see the section underneath the painting which is
masked. When I am applying paint over this layer it consequently is as much of a
surprise to me as it is to the viewer. For this reason, I am excited when I
pull off the final layer of each section of the work.
When looking at your artworks
from the early 1990s, we can see a different style than the current artworks.
Do these past works also reflect the movement of music? Tell us what kind of
changes you've made to reach the current style.
Some of these earlier works have
elements of music, this is apparent in the later phase of the transit zone
series, a good example of this is Transit zone no.14. The red illuminated
highlights which run in thin bands across the paintings embedded in the black
background, in this and later paintings in this series for me were reminiscent
of pianos, that you would hear as background highlights on techno tracks in the
early 1990s. As
they developed, the paintings from the early 1990s progressively became more
intense, I achieved this by making the alternating bands thinner to exemplify the
effect of kinetic vibration. I
had the intention of propelling forward the visual energy created by these
alternating bands of colour, off the picture plane.
In 1994 a friend of mine who was the
son of a famous Australian artist visited my studio and I showed him
Crosscurrent fragment no.1. The
remark that he made after seeing this painting was; “that painting is sonic.” It
was from that moment onward that I realized that I had an achieved in my work a
physicality that went beyond being a conventional two-dimensional abstract
painting. Subsequently,
as I immersed myself in the music culture of the 1990s, I started to associate
this kinetic vibration with sound and music, culminating in the crosscurrent
series in 1994 and later the reverberation series in1996.
What
is the most important detail or point you consider the most (when creating
artworks)
When creating my major paintings which
are the sonic network series I have to consider the points from which the
concentric circles emanate, as well as the central points which define the
centre of each circle. These
points are predetermined by a set of asymmetrical intervals which are derived
from a symmetrical grid. I
have these points mapped out on a piece of paper with corresponding
measurements, resembling an algorithm/musical score. Utilizing these
compositional points as a guide has allowed me to improvise. Consequently,
there is no need to do any drawings or studies to work out the composition of
these Sonic network paintings. As I know from using these compositional points,
that the painting will always be resolved. This gives me the freedom to focus
on other aspects of the work such as colour combinations, and variation in
compositional configurations.
Is
there one particular artwork you’ve created that you’re most proud of or close
to? Why’s that?
My
favourite painting is Sonic no.6 from 2005. It's not the most complex or the
grandest in terms of scale, however, it has an interesting composition. The
aspect of it that I like the most is the colours and how well they harmonize.
It also emanates a warm pinkish reddish glow. This painting was the central
piece in the second solo exhibition titled Sonic fragments no.2 which I had in
2005 at Tobey Fine Arts which was located in Soho in New York.
Who
is your favorite artist and why?
I would have
to say at the moment it would be Piet Mondrian, I saw one of his paintings at
MOMA in New York several years ago and I was absolutely mesmerized by the
simplicity and power of the composition of this particular work. I am astounded
by how he could innovate and master the genre he was working in at the same
time.
How
do you think social media affects the art field?
I feel that it
affects art in a number of ways. It's very exciting that there is the potential
to connect with and stay in touch with an international audience through social
media platforms such as Instagram. In
this respect, it has revolutionized the art world. The downside of this however
is that it doesn’t do justice to certain types of art that don’t translate well
in digital reproduction. In this sense, the subtleties of a lot of art that is
reproduced are lost as it is impossible to capture the physicality of the work,
which you experience when you see work in person. From a personal perspective,
another negative aspect of social media is that it increases the possibility of
plagiarism and in many instances, these artists won’t acknowledge that they
have been influenced by your work.
Have you had a decisive moment
to become an artist?
For me there were several moments, one
was when I was a teenager around the age of fifteen. I had a very progressive
and open-minded art teacher at high school. He identified my talent and
creative aptitude, by encouraging me to experiment, with abstraction rather
than the predominant attitude at the time which was to focus on
representational modes of expression.
I had the idea of pursuing a career as
an artist, but most people I mentioned it to at the time which was in the mid
to late 1970s, were not that encouraging, as it seemed like there was no
possibility of making any income or future from working in that field. After I
returned back to Sydney from a two-year overseas trip to Europe in mid-1986, I
was faced with the dilemma of what direction to go in my life. I decided on two
options, to do further study in Horticulture, and do a diploma in Landscape
architecture or apply for art school. I chose the option of going to art school
which was a difficult decision at the time. I clearly remember the first day at
art school when the assistant head of the art school gave a speech as part of
orientation. At that point, I had decided that I was going to pursue a career
in art and make it my first priority to follow that path.
What kind of artist do you want
to be remembered as?
I want to be remembered as an
innovative artist, who hasn’t compromised their work by the following fashion
and has generated their own vision. I also feel it is important to communicate
and influence people outside of the art world, with my work.
Is there a new genre or
expression technique you want to try?
I would like to
collaborate with a digital artist and animate my paintings as well as combining
them with sound. I also have the idea of collaborating with an economist.
Is
there an artistic goal that you would ultimately reach through your work?
Like
most artists, I would like my work to reach a large audience internationally
and have a profound effect on them where it changes the way that they perceive
the world around them.
I
also would like to influence people from other creative and academic disciplines
to give them ideas and inspiration to initiate innovative projects as well as
leaving a cultural legacy.
Thank you so much for taking the
time for the interview. Would you like to say something to the readers of Art
Terms Magazine?
I
hope the readers get something out of reading this interview, as for me it has
been a really enjoyable and rewarding experience.
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