ROLES?

 CODE - Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox

It has been two weeks since I posted. This is the longest gap I've had since I started blogging in 2006. I normally post once a week.

 

NEWS

CODE is open! The doors opened on Tuesday and I've been busy...sales, visitors, chatting and more. I hung the show on Monday and I sold the first painting half an hour after the doors opened on Tuesday.

Exhibition Dates: 21 July  - Sunday 2 August
Graydon Gallery, 29 Merthyr rd, New Farm, Brisbane, Qld, Australia.

I've posted some installation shots of CODE for you. Plus the one below of me on the steps of the gallery.

ROLE AND AGENCY

 

As I have been chatting with people who have visited CODE I have had an opportunity to think about the catalytic agency of the artist and the arts. In most of the conversations I've had people draw upon their own experiences, dreams and thoughts. It's as if the paintings entice and elicit...pulling on people in a way that engages and embraces imagination.

I have previously written that I do not believe the arts or artists have roles. Why? Because, to have a role immediately indicates some kind of prescription, agenda and hoped for or planned outcome/s. Surely the arts is more than this? Surely the arts can agitate, stir and stimulate in ways that are surprising, confronting, beguiling and provoking without an articulated need or prescribed KPIs? Surely the arts are more dynamic than any kind of  'role' could suggest?

As I said...I prefer to describe the arts and artists as having catalytic agency. This description immediately conjures open-ended possibilities for the artist and their audience. An open-endedness means that imagination can take flight...without a flight plan. A destination is not pre-determined...how exciting! It means questions can be asked that have perhaps never been asked before. It means that knowledge can be created in tangential ways. It means that the artist, and the actual artwork, are launching pads which do not remain static. Each visitor with every conversation they have in their own heads, or with the artist or another person, provides another 'life' beyond the materiality of the artwork. This, in turn, means the artwork is much more than a 'product' made by a creative industries practitioner.

 CODE - Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox

 

 

Over the years I have had many conversations with people who visit my exhibitions. And, even though CODE has been open only two days I've already had some invigorating discussions. The paintings are catalysts...people tell me about their interests, fears, favourite movies, passions, and stories. We take flight together as the paintings draw out of people their ideas about life, Earth, landscape, the Universe, science, culture, philosophy, technology and more.

Regular readers know I love to think about and play with perspective, both literal and metaphoric. Today, through conversations at CODE, I experienced a play with perspective where the possibility of going beyond safe horizons to unchartered territory with others, was realised. I suggest that perspective must be travelled across its close and far distances, in deft and fluid traverse. Advance notice is not necessary...in fact, it could be debilitating, shutting down the playfulness of perspective's improvisational dance. The proposition that artists and the arts have a catalytic agency provides a far more expansive propellant than giving them a 'role' to perform or play. There is no way a simple 'role' could ever be a dance partner with something that has catalytic agency. I see no compatibility. Yet, I suspect perspective is the perfect partner.

 CODE - Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox

 

 

  CODE - Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox

 CODE - Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox

CODE - Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox

 

 

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com