Blind Date

The following exhibition grew from a series of interactions between the artists at various artist-run spaces in Brisbane. This led to studio visits, and an ongoing dialogue until it was decided to mount a joint exhibition at Blindside. The title Blind Date is derived from the process of organising the exhibition. This consisted of a series of phone calls and letters where neither of the artists had seen the work of the other, so in essence it is the aesthetic equivalent of an old-fashioned "set-up".

The constructions exhibited here by Annete Hale are crafted from car parts and automotive trims collected over many years from the luxury car panel shop where the artist is employed. As a consequence , the palette is determined by the colour codes of manufacturers, which is in turn based upon the whims of consumers. The automotive chrome works have a capacity to cast light in a kaleidoscopic fashion and reflect surrounding colours, whilst the coloured works reveal the scrapes of colliding vehicles. At once we are presented with the seductive shine of a new car, and the lurking danger of a car crash. Fall consists of damaged moulding strips from car doors which run down the gallery wall to a silvery pool of chrome offcuts on the floor. These strips, discarded from the brutal origins of car accidents, are transformed into a fluid insinuation of geometric abstraction. The marks left from other cars re-appear as gestural paint strokes in the context of the gallery. These car parts may be ruptured and individualised by the scars of collision, an action that make them worthless as an object in an environment that seeks perfection.

In another instance, two small sculptures are crafted from the interiors of cars. Leather and plastic are embedded with small reflective mirror-like surfaces. These works are Message Sticks, and convey an interaction of small colourful offcuts taken from different vehicles. Reflecting the viewers distorted image within their mirrors, they are passively interactive, mimicing also the structure of the tall buildings beyond the gallery windows. They are the equivalent of a colour swatch or a taste tester - small portable tokens from the world of comfortable luxury cars. In seeing these works produced from car parts we may glean an intimate connection with the fragility of a vehicle. Materially, the shiny car parts are in stark contrast to the chalk-like appearance of envelopes and printing paper used by O’Neill, yet underlying this are similar patterns of production. In both cases, the hard edges of the envelopes and car mouldings are tamed by the irregularities of cutting, and familiarity of use, but the industrial nature of their manufacture remains inherent.

O’Neills began her ongoing envelope series in 2000, with a wallpaper of blue envelopes entitled Easy Listening. From this came the Dilation Series, the round pools of envelope patterns suggesting both the contraction of eyes according to light and the dilation of a woman’s uterus throughout childbirth.In the envelope series, the colouring is also dictated by the material. Flight to Melbourne is based on an aerial view of the landscape as seen on the flight from Queensland. Irregular intersections of white seperate cross-hatched and wavy diagonal plots of paper. The energy of the printed linework is severed and contained by the process of cutting. The patterns on the envelopes echo various aspects of the landscape, such as fences and fields, creating a patchwork of tone and line.

O’Neill’s Hope Island is also conceived from an aerial perspective, based loosely on the canals that weave through the suburbs of the Gold coast. It is a blatant suggestion of the obsession with waterfront living and the dismal overcrowding of suburbia. While the visual clues may direct us toward a comparison with traditional Aboriginal dreamings, the content of the work depicts an urban nightmare. In this fictional evocation of the landscape there is no nature; the monte carlo pool shapes snake through the community like estuaries. The highly repetitive construction of Hope Island bears a resemblance to Outsider Art, where in some instances (eg. Adolf Wolfli, Augustin Lesage) blind determination directs the artist to exhaust their materials completely. Whilst the pencil stubs used to make the work remain intact, the drawing was executed in the spirit of this tradition. There is a similar fascination at work in Ine by Hale, where small chrome mouldings were painstakingly cleaned, cut and pieced together in a mosaic form. In both instances there is an obsession with fitting parts together with very little space between. Each work holds a fascination for angular shapes that fall and swing in circular patterns within the frame. We might read this as a metaphor for the containment of chaos. Hale’s Dream pool series is also somewhat chaotic, swirling chrome and sliced coloured plastics contained within the hard edged oblong frames of a BMW grille.

Compartments for packing the messages and desires of our busy lives, envelopes and automobiles are somewhat essential but mundane carriers for the transport of ourselves and our ideas. In the expression of individualism, such things allow us to retain our personal space, and create a barrier from outside elements. These are materials that might be seen as the protective skins of our everyday life. The complexities and intertwinement of natural forces and premediated actions are an accepted yet unpredictable factor in the real world.

Annete Hale
Jane O’Neill