Runtspace @ Department of Fine Arts
Monash University, Caulfield Victoria AUS
Monday 16th July - Friday 20th July 2007
Our motivation for putting together this show in Runt Space came from our desire to collaborate together. An essential part of studying art here at Monash is the students’ exposure to the intense visual culture around us. Being immersed in this productive environment everyday we feed off and inspire each other to push boundaries and explore the familiar and the foreign. Through collaborations this connection is intensified and channelled to create a working relationship that distils these energies to create an even more exciting result. We want to exploit the visual connection students have with each other and see what can be achieved when two people work together.
Although we work in the same manner, Renee and I derive our practice from very separate origins.
Renee is concerned primarily with describing aesthetic relationships. Her work is very fast paced, unfolding as the relationships between the colours and shapes emerge and interlace. To achieve her desired aesthetic effects Renee works with a variety of materials that include collage, oil paint, coloured pencil and oil pastel.
Merryn is interested in trying to convert psychological processes into a physical space, to bring something that was once in the mind into physical being. This exploration has lead in many different directions, from more descriptive and pragmatic drawings, to recent abstract and sensory pictures constructed using collage and stop animation.
We wanted to see what the combination of our two separate work practices would be like. This relationship was enhanced by the situation we were placed in – producing work for Runt rather than Link space. Using the room as a studio space and gallery space produces some interesting conditions for the production of work in this collaborative show. It meant we could break down the pristine white gallery space and transform it into something unrecognisable. It was our aim to do something very different from previous shows in Runt, as well as push ourselves to be brave.
